


The Other Boy

by Lenore



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), True Blood
Genre: Challenge Response, Challenge:Vampire Big Bang, Crossover, Drama, First Time, Historical, M/M, Multi, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-06
Updated: 2010-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-13 02:19:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/pseuds/Lenore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric is not the only vampire Godric made, and history is the most inevitable force of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Boy

**Author's Note:**

> I've never read the Sookie Stackhouse books, and I started writing this story before the third season of True Blood began, so it diverges from canon in some ways. Also, everything I know about history I learned from Google. This is a greatly expanded version of the story by the same name that I posted earlier this year. It's for [](http://community.livejournal.com/vampirebigbang/profile)[**vampirebigbang**](http://community.livejournal.com/vampirebigbang/) and also fulfills my Vampire square for [](http://community.livejournal.com/au_bingo/profile)[**au_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/au_bingo/). Many thanks to [](http://gypsy-scribbles.livejournal.com/profile)[**gypsy_scribbles**](http://gypsy-scribbles.livejournal.com/) who generously donated to the [](http://community.livejournal.com/teamlambliff/profile)[**teamlambliff**](http://community.livejournal.com/teamlambliff/) Donor's Choose charity drive to sponsor the completion of this story. I also want to thank my wonderful artist [](http://creepylicious.livejournal.com/profile)[**creepylicious**](http://creepylicious.livejournal.com/) for making gorgeous art and a fantastic mix. Smaller versions of the images are embedded in the text, but please follow the link to see the full size versions and let her know how awesome it all is! This story is dedicated to my dear, dear [](http://no-detective.livejournal.com/profile)[**no_detective**](http://no-detective.livejournal.com/), without whom it would never have existed at all. She helped me map out the story over long brunch conversations, answered my frantic emails, and did an amazing job beta reading. I could never have done it without you, my dear!
> 
> Link to: [Art and Mix](http://creepylicious.livejournal.com/63206.html)

In days long past, when Eric was still human, a hunter of elk and reindeer, he could smell a storm days before it hit, feel the minute shift of molecules the instant an animal decided to turn and attack rather than flee. Those instincts have never deserted him; they've only sharpened with age, taking on a preternatural keenness, exceptional even for a thousand-year-old vampire.

It begins with a feeling like the ground has gone liquid beneath his feet, as if he's being rocked by after-shocks from an earthquake a world away. It grows steadily stronger, clearer, this sense that something's coming, until finally it takes shape, an outline at once familiar and unwelcome. Eric considers that he might be wrong. Because even _he_ wouldn't venture into a sheriff's territory without permission. But of course, Eric is rarely wrong, and casual trespassing is exactly the kind of thing _he_ would do. Besides, there's no mistaking the prickle on the back of Eric's neck. No one else on earth feels quite like _him_.

The night he finally steps through the doors at Fangtasia—and Eric has no doubt he's taken his sweet time getting there, playing a cat-and-mouse game with Eric's instincts for the sheer hell of it—everyone in the crowd turns to stare. They part like the Red Sea to let him through. He always did have this effect on people, even when he was alive. At least, that's what _he_ has always claimed.

Pam materializes at Eric's side. "What is it?" She cranes her neck. "Well, well, look what the cat dragged in. The other boy."

Eric turns an irritated scowl on her, but Pam knows him far too well to fall for it.

"Enjoy your reunion." She quickly finds somewhere else to be.

Adam makes his way through the throngs, hungry glances following in his wake. His dark hair is streaked blue. He's wearing eyeliner and lip gloss and—Eric doesn't even know how to describe the clothes. There's leather and glitter and what look to be wings. Apparently, you can take the boy out of the eighteenth century, but you can never quite take the dandy out of the boy.

He stops a few paces from Eric. "What? No kiss?"

"Halloween isn't for three months," Eric tells him in a deadpan.

Adam looks down at his outfit and back up again. "You don't like it?" The corner of his mouth tilts up in a smirk.

In a flash, Eric lunges, forcing Adam across the room, sending chairs and customers flying, until he has Adam backed against the wall, his arm across Adam's throat. This is the effect Adam has on him. "What do you want?"

"Well, hello to you too." A faint smile plays over Adam's lips. He's never been impressed by Eric's power.

That doesn't stop Eric from baring his fangs anyway.

"Temper, darling," Adam chastises him.

Eric reluctantly lets him go, but only because this shouldn't be settled in front of witnesses. "What are you doing here, Adam?"

For just a second, Adam's expression goes naked, blunt pain in his blue eyes, and Godric's name sears into Eric. He pointedly looks away.

Adam recovers quickly. "Yes, I am doing well, thank you. It's wonderful to see you too," he drawls sarcastically. "I see you still have your same gift for conversation."

"You need my permission to travel through this territory," Eric tells him gruffly.

"Is there anything more tedious than a bunch of boring rules?" Adam's expression couldn't be more unconcerned. It's a wonder, really, that he's lasted as long as he has.

"You never did have any respect for our customs." Eric gives him a disapproving look.

Adam shrugs. "I lived as I chose when I was human. Why should I be any different as a vampire?" He leans closer. "Come on. Aren't you even a little bit happy to see me?"

Before Eric can say no, Adam hooks a hand behind Eric's head, reels him in, and sticks his tongue in Eric's mouth. Eric bites him in punishment, and Adam's blood trickles into his mouth. He freezes at the taste of it, because there's a hint, just a hint, of their shared source. Then he's grappling at Adam, pulling him closer, clutching at his shoulders. Their hips press together, a hot spark of friction, and Eric licks and licks at that taste until the blood is all gone.

When Adam draws away, the cut is healed. "So, can I stay?" he asks with a lopsided smile.

For a moment, Eric still considers saying no. "Don't cause trouble."

Adam's eyes sparkle. "Who, me?" He leans close, and his voice takes an intimate tumble into a lower octave. "You taste like him too, you know." He licks a stripe across Eric's cheek. "Now." He claps his hands together and looks around. "What's fun to do around here?" He eyes a blond boy across the way, who stares back with big eyes, already hopelessly smitten. Adam winks at Eric and slips into the crowd.

Eric ignores the tightening in his gut, because it's so utterly ridiculous.

Pam comes sauntering up. "So why don't you just fuck him already and get it out of your system?"

"I have no idea what you mean."

Out of the corner of his eye, Eric can't help noticing that Adam has swept the blond boy out onto the dance floor. Can't help noticing that the blond boy's idea of dancing consists of trying to crawl inside Adam's skin.

Pam glances at him and then over at Adam. She bursts into a loud, bright laugh. "This is going to be fun."

"Vampires are the leeches that feed on the blood of human history."

A perfect picture of the moment when Godric made that declaration lives in Eric's memory. A tumbledown inn in Strasbourg. Godric framed in the open window, moonlight streaming in, streaking his dark hair blue. An unusually absent expression on his face, his eyes fastened on some distant horizon beyond Eric's imagination. Eric said nothing, because Godric was his maker, and what was there to say to something so incomprehensible? Wasn't it Godric who had taught Eric, in their glorious early days together, that the petty travails of humans existed to make sport for their betters, to satisfy their lust for blood and entertainment? ____spacer____

____spacer____

"We must go to Paris," Godric added in the next breath.

Vampires from all over the continent—and those who could make it from much farther abroad—were thronging to France with a carnival-like sense of expectation. Stories buzzed from vampire group to vampire group of riots in the streets, crazed mobs sowing violence like seeds on the wind, the delicious stench of fear hanging in the air.

Something like relief coursed through Eric, although he would never admit to such a feeble emotion. Godric wishing to go to Paris was something he could understand, at least.

Experiences tended to blur together after so long a time, but the day Eric had been reborn in Godric's image still gleamed vividly in his memory. It was raining when he awoke in Death's embrace, more alive than he ever had been in life, and Godric looked down on him with this primal hunger, this crushing tenderness. _I will be your father, your brother, your child_. Eric could feel the shape of Godric in everything he was, everything he would ever be.

For hundreds of years, they dealt death with effortless efficiency, one mind, one desire. Eric couldn't say when that began to change, or why, and at times he tried to convince himself that there had been no change at all. Godric hunted at Eric's side just as he always had, but there was a certain distraction in the pursuit, a distance in the moment of the kill, a lack of malicious joy at the taste of blood. Too often it felt as if Godric was leading the way somewhere Eric couldn't follow.

Paris. Paris would remind them who they were. Death and his companion.

A trampled dove greeted them at the city limits, desiccating in the dirt of the street, a fitting omen. The city felt coiled, an angry spring ready to snap. People roamed the streets despite the hour, ordinary citizens once, now slit-eyed with suspicion, begging for an excuse to violence with the very postures of their bodies. Eric and Godric moved freely, Godric's power wiping perception of them from feeble human awareness before it could even register, and yet a jangling energy shot through everyone they passed, a stirring of instinct, the way animals reacted to their presence.

____spacer____

One woman actually whirled around, staring blindly at where they stood, drawing a dagger from beneath her cloak, wielding it at the air with manic eyes. Eric imagined her neck in his hand—it would take only one—the press of his thumb into cartilage and bone, the satisfying snap as he taught her the true meaning of power.

Godric merely stared in puzzlement. "How does such a creature come to exist? What does she want? What do any of them want?"

They'd always been one mind, one desire, but here was Godric's curiosity like a fortress, standing between Eric and the pleasure of the kill. He let the cloaked woman go, a concession out of respect to his maker, but the hunger still lurked. In a narrow, filthy alleyway he took his due, a fleshy, sallow-faced merchantman who gaped in surprise, mouth round and moving like a fish, as the rich taste of blood and terror filled Eric's mouth. He covered the marks on the neck and flung the body away. It would be just another random death among so many when the body was discovered in the morning.

Godric waited while Eric fed, his expression dispassionate, neither hungry nor disapproving, with the bottomless patience that made him seem more ancient than time itself.

They moved on, and Eric cherry-picked his delights: a prostitute with muzzy auburn hair and a tear in her stocking that begged for his fangs to be put to the artery there, a street urchin with the fresh, sweet taste children always had, a young man dressed in tatters but with the scent of chocolate and sweet herbs clinging to him, a noble fleeing one fate only to find another.

Godric preferred watching the humans to making them a nightly banquet, as Eric did, as every other vampire in the city was doing. He would listen to their demonstrations in the streets, their whispered conversations, their chaotic chatter with a puzzled frown. "What do they want, Eric? Why do they struggle so?"

 _Who cares?_ But Eric hadn't said it. He'd hoped Godric would find the answers he wanted, and everything would return to the way it had been before.

Instead, they'd come upon Adam.

It was the song that caught their attention, carried on the wind, harsh words in a voice so glorious it was hard to believe it was human. _Aux armes, citoyens, formez vos bataillons, marchons, marchons !_

"Come, Eric." Godric led the way, sharply alert, the Godric of old, a creature of unerring instinct and inhuman determination.

The prison cart stood outside a stark gray stone building with a crenellated roof, jammed full of guillotine fodder, panicked faces pressed to the bars, arms outstretched, begging for help that would never come. Most of the condemned appeared to be peasants, roughly dressed. A priest huddled in his robes muttering prayers under his breath. A few prisoners looked like they might have been shopkeepers in happier times before someone suspected them of something.

But the singer of the song, that paean to revolution, wore the clothes of an aristocrat, dirty and torn but still obviously fine. His long body folded like a screen in the close space, his thick black hair messy and covered in dust, his face creased with grime, and yet there was an unrelentingly regal line to his shoulders, his blue eyes bright with defiance. Later they would learn he was the younger son of a noble family, courtiers to the King before the royal head had been separated from the royal body. Then he was just a voice swelling the night, _Tremble, tyrants and traitors the shame of all good men, tremble!_

The other prisoners yelled for him to shut up and threw straw mired with shit, the only weapon at hand, but he continued, more loudly, until the song was done.

"You mock us," the priest said gravely.

The man laughed, short and bitter. "I mock myself. My kind. Everyone who has ever believed that the world will always be the same."

"That's what they want. Change. _Progress_." Godric said the word as if it were a revelation, and stirred closer, watching the man as if here finally was the elusive answer he'd been seeking.

"We are in the arms of our Heavenly Father," the priest said. "That will never change."

The man smiled cruelly. "No doubt he will take the same care of us that he did of his servant Louis XVI."

A gasp passed through the prisoners. The priest crossed himself, while the man looked coolly ahead, as if nothing could touch him, as if he were a distant star.

"Him," Godric said with utter conviction. "Get him for me."

Eric went gladly. It had been so long since Godric had wanted anything, since he'd fed for any reason but necessity. The lock turned to metallic dust in Eric's hands. He wrenched the door open and trod over cowering bodies to loom above the man with the dark hair. Makeup still streaked his face, revealing freckles like chinks in armor. The man stared up at Eric, steadily, not trembling, not begging for mercy, his blue eyes clear and unafraid. When Eric tangled a hand in the collar of his jacket and lifted him off his feet, the man made no effort to pit his laughable human strength against Eric's, but he didn't crumple either, the way others did, resigned to their fate.

"Come," Godric said, beckoning for Eric to follow.

The streets blurred into a ribbon of light and dark, cobblestones turned to twigs and dirt. They didn't stop until they were far out into the countryside, no illumination but the moon. Eric dumped the man onto the ground, and he stared up at them from his knees, panting from the dizzying journey, his expression as coolly ironic as ever.

Godric stepped toward him, and joy leapt in Eric at the prospect of watching him tear out the throat that had made that unearthly song, as if he too would taste the pleasure of that blood, as if this would be the thing to heal them, one mind, one desire. But Godric merely touched his fingers to the man's chin, tilting it up. "What is your name?"

Eric would have expected insolence from the man, even from his knees, but he stared up at Godric, eyes wide and amazed, as if he'd never seen anything like him. He licked dry lips and said in a rough voice, "Adam."

"Adam," Godric repeated, still holding his chin. "Tell me, why do you mock those who believe the world will always be the same?"

"Because everything changes. All living things. Why should human society be any different?"

"Yes." Godric took his hand away. "Why should any society."

"Are you going to kill me now that I've answered your question?"

"I'm going to give you life." He turned to face Eric's dismay. "Trust me, my child. It is the right thing."

Eric felt as if he'd left his own body, floating at a distance, as he watched Godric stroke Adam's cheek, bend over him, so deliberately, watched Adam cry out, his head jerking sharply, neck arching. Godric's gaze found Eric's as he drank, blood smearing his mouth, and the look there said, _This is for you as much as for me._ A consolation prize when he'd promised, _Your father, your brother, your child._ Adam moaned, a low sound in his throat, and even that had a musical quality. And Eric knew. This wasn't going to be the thing that healed them. Not at all.

Eric's office is tucked away at the back of Fangtasia, a good-sized room that he keeps largely empty, just a plain, industrial-style metal desk with hard edges and two Danish modern chairs, uncompromisingly straight-backed. The walls are painted such a stark white it's a form of aggression, and he leaves them startlingly blank, without even a hint of color or texture. It's the interior-decorating version of sensory deprivation, and he finds it soothing as he wrangles with account books and sales tax records, the tedious price that comes with being accepted into human society. Not for the first time, he longs for the good old days of lurking and pillaging.

"Sheriff. I've come on important business from her majesty."

A bulky form fills the doorway, the presence that Eric has been sensing for the last fifteen minutes. He glances up irritably from the form he's filling out in triplicate. It's an uncivilized hour for a nuisance visit from one of the Queen's minions, the stink of twilight still hanging in the air. The minion sits without waiting to be invited, meeting Eric's eye brazenly, although he reeks of youth, not even a hundred years old. The palpable force of Eric's power should have him cowering; he trusts too much in the Queen's protection, and for a moment, Eric considers teaching him how foolhardy that is. But the stack of forms won't finish itself, and if he gets vampire gore on them, he'll have to start over. Saved by bureaucracy. His mouth twists with sarcasm at the thought.

"Her majesty said to tell you that she's waiting."

The minion delivers the line with B-movie bravado, and Eric absently wonders where Sophie-Anne picked this one up. Chicago in the 1930s maybe. A low-level thug—with a square, blunt body and a pushed-in, pockmarked face as if he's been on the wrong side of a sledgehammer—he'll never be anything else, for however long he lasts. Which won't be long, Eric guesses, not if he knows the Queen. This minion is nothing to look at, and he probably can't even spell Yahtzee.

"Tell her majesty I'm working on it," Eric answers in his own good time.

He and the Queen have been playing this same game of chess for months, both of them with the same shiny object flashing in their eyes, and only one of them can posses it. In the strictest sense, Eric can't prevail against Sophie-Anne, not without committing treason, but he can still so vividly recall how it felt when Sookie drank from him, the electric connection of blood more intimate than her mouth on his chest. Whenever he sees her now, she flusters easily, color creeping up her cheeks, from whatever dreams she's been having of him. Eric doesn't know what she is exactly or how useful she might actually prove to be, but he has power over her that the Queen can't touch, and he's not yet ready to give up his stake.

Something Sophie-Anne understands perfectly well, and her minion does not.

"Her majesty is tired of waiting," the minion blusters, like a child in grownup's clothes.

It takes the space between molecules to reach the minion's side. He blinks up at Eric like a newborn, eyes wide and disoriented for a long beat, and then terror blooms in his expression as his ham-handed brain catches up, does the math, comprehends the danger.

Eric's smile curls with casual malice. "Tell her majesty that I will let her know as soon as there is anything to report."

The newborn gets to his feet, sluggish and earthen compared to Eric, nodding nervously.

"I'll see you out." Eric holds the door for him, partly to watch him cower, because that's always fun, and partly because he doesn't want the minion lingering, scaring off the paying customers with his feeble attempt at menace.

Adam is just stirring as they cross the floor to the front entrance, never an early riser. He emerges groggily from the room he's commandeered, tousle-haired and bare-chested, sleep pants riding low on his hips. Eric rolls his eyes at the pajamas, ridiculous human custom, and remembers all the many evenings he waited around for Adam to finish his rather arduous toilette before they could go hunting. Candlelight gutters in Eric's mind. Adam, or the ghost of him, sits before a mirror, holding a brush in hand, smoothing powder over skin that is already as white as death, drawing in eyebrows with an arch so sharp it's like he's made of endless curiosity, lining his eyes with black so deep it makes the blue look bright enough to cut.

"The point is to fit in," Eric reminds him, slouching against the wall, hungry and impatient.

"Maybe that's _your_ point." Adam's mouth tilts up in a knowing way, and Eric wants to do something to wipe the smile off his face. He's just not quite sure what.

The picture dissolves, and Adam is clean-faced, rumpled, stalled in the doorway. He's an accomplished actor—Eric has to give him that. He almost manages to cover up the look of recognition when he spots the minion. Sledgehammer Face is not nearly so subtle. He stares openly at Adam, a reptilian sort of calculation in his flat eyes that lingers even as Eric is showing him the door.

Adam makes a production of yawning once they're alone. "Does everyone get up at the crack of nightfall around here? It's so uncivilized." He pads over to the bar with the kind of determined nonchalance that sets every instinct Eric has on edge.

Adam has never been political. In fact, he's practiced a determined defiance of vampire society practically from the moment he was made. But if the Queen has somehow cajoled or bribed him into spying... then Eric will need to know what she's planning.

"That goes on your tab," he says brusquely as Adam cracks open a bottle of True Blood. "There's no free ride here."

"Yes." Adam's smile is small and tight. "Why would here be any different from anywhere else?"

Eric leaves him to his swill. Back in his office, he takes a moment before picking up the account books, closes his eyes, reaches out with his mind, threading his will through his human's thoughts. It's so much easier to deal with problems when the solution comes to him.

It takes Lafayette twenty minutes to arrive, although the trip from Bon Temps takes more like forty if there's any kind of consideration shown for traffic laws. Eric is pleased to see that Lafayette recognizes there's a higher authority at work here than the state highway patrol. Lafayette hovers on the threshold of Eric's office, the polar opposite of the Queen's minion, uncertain even though he's been summoned. Eric catches the delicious whiff of terror coming off him.

Lafayette jerks his chin up, tries to fight down the quaver in his voice. "I'm pushing the V like you asked. I don't know what else you want."

Eric nods to the chair, and Lafayette reluctantly sits. "It's been a while since we've seen each other, Mr. Reynolds."

The reaction is instantaneous. Lafayette's head ducks sharply, and he lowers his eyes to the floor. Eric guesses that it hasn't been long at all since Lafayette last saw Eric. Sometimes the erotic dreams go on for months after the transfer of blood. Eric lets his gaze linger, heavy as a hand on Lafayette's skin, because he can, because it's always a good idea to keep the human help off balance. Lafayette fights it, but finally can't help squirming in his chair.

"I have a job I need you to do for me." Eric cuts to the chase.

Lafayette recovers enough to offer an attitude. "What other shit you want me to sell now?"

"I need you to get close to someone. Find out what he's doing here. Who sent him." He pauses suggestively. "Use your powers of persuasion."

Lafayette's voice rises indignantly, "I'm not your whore!"

Eric regards him calmly. "Aren't you?"

Lafayette stares back down at the floor.

In a blink, Eric looms over him. "You're whatever I say you are."

Reluctantly, Lafayette follows him out into the club. Eric points out Adam, who's dancing. Lafayette regards him warily, which is so ridiculous it's almost funny.

"No need to fear, Mr. Reynolds. Adam doesn't believe in hurting humans, and he won't bite you unless you ask him nicely." Eric makes a disgusted face. "He's always been a disappointment."

Lafayette doesn't seem entirely convinced, but he says, with all the false bravado he can muster, "You're just lucky he's hot."

The opinion appears to be mutual, since it takes about three seconds for Lafayette to end up wrapped around Adam. Eric recognizes the delight in Adam's eyes—he saw it often enough during their time together. Apparently Adam still hasn't gotten over his ludicrous fondness for humans. No doubt he can sense Eric on Lafayette, understands that this human belongs to him. When Adam bends close to Lafayette, licks extravagantly at his neck, as if he can taste Eric there, Eric has to fight off the shiver that wants to travel down his spine. Adam is only trying to usurp what doesn't rightfully belong to him, Eric tells himself. That is a vampire's nature.

"I have a room," Eric hears Adam say. "We can be alone."

"Honey, I've got a whole house. Nobody hanging around, listening in like jealous little bitches."

Adam laughs delightedly. "Let's go then."

"The old-fashioned way," Lafayette insists. "I'm not leaving my car here for all these delinquent freaks to do God knows what."

"You can get us there fast?"

"I've got the reckless driving tickets to prove it."

Eric feels them go, the connection to Lafayette growing more muted with the miles, although there is no such luck with Adam. He watches Yvetta work the pole and sends Pam off to finish the paperwork he doesn't feel like doing, much to her annoyance. He's not waiting for anything to happen between Adam and Lafayette. He has much more important things to attend to.

Despite this, their first touch flashes through his head, the muted sensation of skin, contact, and he tunes in to it, concentrating. Information. That's what he's after.

"You don't have to do this." Adam's voice uncoils like a tendril in Eric's head, low, sinuous.

"The way you got me all riled up on the drive over here, I'm pretty sure I do."

Adam laughs. "I'll take care of you, baby. But you should know I'm not the kind to fuck and tell. So whatever Eric's fishing for, he's not going to get it this way."

"I'm not—I wouldn't—" Lafayette trails off, and there's a long pause and then a sigh. "Can we still have sex?"

"Oh honey, can we ever!"

Eric grimaces at Adam's unseemly exuberance and makes a note to discuss with Lafayette the meaning of "covert" and "persistence." He pushes away the connection, but before it breaks, he catches a hint of soft breath, the rustle of clothes being stripped off. And that's just—it.

A moment later, Eric looms over Lafayette's bed, where Adam is shirtless and bent over Lafayette, licking curiously at a nipple, making Lafayette arch and press, needy sounds spilling out of his throat.

Adam looks over his shoulder at Eric, grinning. "What took you so long?"

"Mr. Reynolds," Eric says, cool and formal.

Lafayette stares up at him with wide, unfocused eyes, as if he doesn't remember Eric's name. Or his own for that matter. _You won't kill, but you have no problem using your powers for seduction,_ Eric had once challenged Adam. To which Adam had replied with a laugh, _Please. Compulsion is for amateurs._

"Your business is finished here," Eric tells the human, nodding at the door.

Lafayette lets out a disgruntled sigh and drags himself up from bed. "Ya'll do know this is my house, right?"

It only takes a look to make him scurry. All humans could use a good month in a dungeon to teach them the proper manners, Eric thinks. It improves them greatly. Adam flops back onto the bed, casually sprawled. His gaze moves lazily over Eric, which would look like an invitation to anyone who didn't know him, who didn't understand that Adam likes to fight his battles this way.

"So, this is what you do now? Send humans to take care of your business for you? There is such a thing as delegating too much, you know, Eric." Adam smiles up at him.

Eric can see the intentional provocation clearly for what it is, but that's never stopped it from getting under his skin. He takes a deliberate step closer.

"Why don't you just ask me?" Adam's voice drops so low only a vampire could hear it. He flashes another of his weapons, that soft, almost hurt look in his eyes, which has been infuriating Eric for as long as they've known each other.

Eric takes another step, puts his hand on Adam's throat.

"Or you could take what you want." Adam tilts his head back, offering himself, a parody of submission, since they both know there's nothing compliant about him in the least.

Still, Eric could. Take what he wants, whatever that is, fuck Adam or tear him apart with his bare hands, bring the house down around them both. He could. But.

Then Adam would win.

Eric takes his hand away. "A vampire doesn't give in to his emotions."

"That philosophy worked for Godric." Adam's gaze meets Eric's, bold and intrusive as always. "For you, not so much. And it goes without saying that it's never been my style."

Insolent creature, to question Godric, and the temptation resurges to teach him a lesson, although it's complicated by the desire to make him bleed, to taste him again. Finally, Eric turns to leave, because that's what Godric would do.

"You know where to find me when you change your mind," floats down the hall after him.

Below, Lafayette sulks on the sofa, a sullen tilt of his chin when he spots Eric on the stairs, the spoiled-milk scent of frustration coming off him in waves.

"Mr. Reynolds, thank you for the hospitality," Eric says with an ironic little nod.

"Cockblocker," he hears Lafayette mutter under his breath.

Eric smiles as he flies away. If he has to be stuck dealing with Adam, who is just as confounding as ever, at least he still has the simple pleasures.

Adam's ways have always been unusual, from the very beginning.

When Eric was turned, it had been a true rebirth; in the place of his humanity a vast, voracious hunger took shape. He and Godric cut a swath through Sweden, taking, feeding, sowing terror as carelessly as crows strewed stray seeds over the earth. When they reached that strip of land by the North Sea where Eric's people lived, it hardly registered. Nothing felt familiar, and he devoured his way through the human livestock, ruthlessly, no compunction about whom he was killing.

Adam seemed to awake with no more than a vague pang of need, something he found more annoying than all consuming. The first time Eric demonstrated for him how to feed, he stood off to the side, watching with an expression of mild repugnance as Eric tore out the throat of a stoop-shouldered laundress they'd caught on her way home from work.

"There has to be another way," Adam insisted, his lips pressed together in distaste, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest.

"He's made wrong," Eric said to Godric, gruffly, to hide the triumph that wanted to break through. A vampire who'd been made wrong had to be destroyed; that was one of their most sacred rules.

"Everything changes, Eric," was Godric's only response, soft and oddly hopeful, and then to Adam, "Show us. Show us another way."

Adam took that in and nodded slowly, with a thoughtful look. Eric dug deep into his self-restraint to keep from rolling his eyes. Godric was his maker, and Eric had looked to him for wisdom every moment of their time together, but what could they possibly learn from a whelp of a vampire who didn't even have the right instincts?

This conviction only grew as it became clear what Adam's way would be. He pursued blood with a courtier's delicacy and charm, much to Eric's disgust, beguiling rather than overwhelming with force, borrowing what should simply be taken as the due of a superior being. He never killed, but instead used his voice to make it good for the human, to seduce them into offering themselves up for his pleasure. Afterward, he would fix the human with a long soulful look, although there should be nothing like a soul left in him, an expression of almost reverential concentration, as if he were trying to give something in return for taking away their memories of him.

Eric looked away from these unseemly displays with disgust. Godric watched, both puzzled and curious.

"How is that you now find fascinating the same creatures you would have stepped over in the streets when you were alive?" Eric once challenged Adam.

"Don't you see? That's what makes it so amazing." Adam's face shone with excitement. "Nobility is separation, like living inside a fortress instead of skin. The only people you know are exactly like you. But now all of humanity is laid out for me like a banquet, and it's—" He cast around for the right word. " _Enthralling_."

Eric didn't bother to mention he knew perfectly well what nobility felt like, as a king, as the son of a king. There was no arguing with Adam's notions. _Because he was made wrong_ , Eric felt certain.

The year they wintered in London, Adam took to the city like a big, gamboling puppy, as if he had never been either French or an aristocrat. Face paint and silk hose gave way to breeches and boots and a great coat with broad, military lapels. To Eric's raised eyebrow at the costume, Adam replied merely, "Everything changes. Fashion most of all."

In the evening, he insisted on going to the White Horse, the local tavern that stood a few doors down from the place they were staying, to carouse with humans, rather than lurking in the shadows outside waiting for gin-blurred dinner to come staggering their way, the way any self-respecting vampire would have done. Eric started to argue, but Godric found Adam's unaccountable taste for human companionship intriguing. So they went.

Adam strode through the doors, smiling and expansive with good will, as if he had no idea what the word "inconspicuous" meant. As if he were still one of the lowly creatures, snuffling in the dirt, dying every moment they were alive.

"Good evening." Adam beamed at the landlord behind the bar. "A pint of ale for me and my friends here."

He ignored the dark look Eric shot him and downed his ale in a lusty gulp, without gagging or even a grimace. He retained not just a tolerance for human food, but an actual fondness for it, more evidence in Eric's opinion that something was irretrievably wrong with him.

A fiddler played in the corner, the instrument battered and off-key, the man sawing out a rheumy country tune, the kind favored by drunks and the nostalgic-hearted, which apparently covered everyone in the place, since they all sang along. _There shall I visit the place of my birth, and they'll give me a welcome the warmest on earth…_ Adam listened, head cocked, until he caught the tune, and then his voice joined the others, deep and resonant, with the same arresting emotion it had when he'd sung his own death dirge in that prison cart in Paris. The others gradually went quiet to listen until Adam was the only one left singing, and when the tune ended with a final flourish of the fiddle, the crowd showed its appreciation with boisterous applause and cries of "Give us another!"

Adam obliged with a gracious smile, and everyone in the tavern, even the roughs and the pickpockets who'd snuck in to work the crowd, listened quiet and enrapt, not even a stray rustle of movement interrupting the song. One young man in particular couldn't take his eyes off Adam—there was always one, it was always a young man—and Adam smiled in his direction more often than in any other. When he'd finished the last song, despite the tavern keeper's plea for just one more, the starry-eyed young man made his way over to Adam, offering his hand and ducking his head, a blush on his cheeks. These conquests of Adam's were always shy.

"That was—" The young man broke off as if there were no words, the pink of his cheeks turning a deeper shade.

"The most fun I've had in way too long," Adam said, voice like a purr in his throat, smile so bright and broad that the young man blinked, dazed.

The young man cleared his throat. "We could—" And then he froze, terror forming on his face at what he'd just been about to suggest.

Adam leaned in and said in a voice so low that only the young man and the vampires in the room could hear him. "Honey, not only can we, but we'd be fools not to."

Nobody paid any attention as Adam led the young man out back to the alley; Eric had never seen a vampire master the fine art of compulsion as quickly or as thoroughly as Adam.

"We should go," Eric said, pushing away the overly friendly bar wench who smelled like rotting vegetables on a hot June day. He was eager to feed, but he preferred more appetizing fair.

"Not yet, my child." Godric watched a man at a nearby table flirting with a blowsy, grubby-haired mill girl. Godric's expression would have looked impassive to anyone else, but Eric could see the glimmer of fascination, as if these dusty mortals with their pathetic pawing and wooing were somehow a discovery.

Eric sighed and rose to his feet. He craved amusement of a different kind, and baiting Adam would serve almost as well as hunting. The moment he stepped outside, he caught a ragged sob, a wet sound in the back of a human throat, pleading, almost mournful. He brightened at the thought that perhaps Adam had finally found his vampire's nature. A few steps further into the shadows, though, he could see that Adam was disappointing as always, with his arm wrapped lover-like around the young man's chest, moving urgently inside him, whispering against his neck as he lapped blood, "So good, honey, so good."

The young man whimpered, pushing his hips back into Adam's thrusts, arching his neck, offering what he'd never even known he needed. Ardent submission—that was Adam's true pleasure. The young man seized and went silent, shoulders shaking, as he found his completion, and Adam growled, low and guttural, pounding into the pliant body until he came as well.

"Mm," Adam murmured in a warm, dewy voice as he separated their bodies.

The human stood there as limp as a doll, dazed to the point that Eric expected drool to run down his chin at any moment, while Adam rearranged their clothes.

"Are you all right?" Adam stroked a thumb along the young man's jaw with unseemly tenderness. The young man blinked like an addle-brain, and slowly his mouth curved into a smile, cognizance returning to his expression, brightness to his eyes, a pink stain to his cheeks.

Adam smiled in answer, his face shining so brightly Eric had the urge to cover his eyes. Joy. That was the only word to describe that look. A wave of disgust overtook Eric, which was only natural, but the envy that was mingled in was harder to comprehend, and fury followed closely on its heels.

"This is what you do with your gift?" he hissed at Adam. "Waste it on beguiling humans?"

The young man started at Eric's voice. Adam stroked the human's hair, a furrow of concentration between his eyebrows until the human went slack and relaxed again, smiling at Adam dreamily.

Adam's lips curved up in wry amusement. "How do you know I haven't always had this effect on people?"

Eric snarled and attacked, and a split second later the young man went completely limp as Eric tore his throat out. He tossed away the empty husk and stared at Adam in challenge. _I took your human. What are you going to do about it?_

Adam merely fixed him with a look of distaste. "That really wasn't necessary."

Eric forced Adam back against the wall, making the bricks shake. "It's what we are."

"What we are is far more complicated than that." Adam had the temerity to argue, his voice infuriatingly calm, even though Eric had all the power here. Even though Eric could kill him. Godric would forgive him. Eventually.

Most vampires smelled only of old blood and the wind, but in the close press of their bodies, it was impossible to ignore that Adam had retained his human scent, vanilla and cedar and sunshine. Adam met Eric's gaze, intently, as if he could work his feeble magic on Eric, because of course it was too much to expect that he might back down like anyone who had any kind of sense. Adam was always confounding, his ridiculous fearlessness eliciting a tinge of admiration in Eric when it would have been so much simpler just to hate him.

Funny that courage should be Eric's weakness.

He tightened his grip where he held Adam pinned to the wall by the throat, but his thumb began to move without his permission, stroking over soft skin. Adam's mouth parted in invitation, and when Eric did nothing about it, Adam took the initiative, pushing against Eric's grip, craning his neck to reach. The kiss came light and curious, a bare meeting of lips, and that shouldn't have been a spark, but somehow it was. Eric took Adam's wrists in his hands, pinning them to the wall, bone grating against the rough brick. Now that he was in charge of the kiss, it was hungry and furious, his hips working against Adam's. He could feel Adam's hardness against his thigh, which made him vicious with triumph, and the fact that he was just as aroused…

He flung Adam aside, his body cutting the air. Adam landed a good twenty feet away, gracefully, on his feet. Eric expected the wounded look that Adam knew how to work so well, but instead he was merely resigned.

"We really don't have to be enemies."

Yet another thing Adam didn't understand about their kind.

Eric hissed, his fangs sliding free, and he circled, ready to move in for the kill. But then Godric's voice quietly called out his name. He hesitated before drawing his fangs back in, reluctantly. Adam remained still as a statue, giving Eric a deep, assessing look, as if this was all far from over.

 

Eric could never decide if what happened later was payback, Adam taking something from Eric the way Eric took his human, or if it was merely Adam being Adam. Either way, he should have seen it coming.

"I just feel like staying in," Adam said with a shrug.

When had he ever felt like staying in before? Eric would think that later.

It was less surprising that Godric chose not to go out; not only had his pleasure in the hunt dimmed, but he seemed to require sustenance less and less often these days. _It will be the same for you, my child, when you are as old as I am_ , he'd assured Eric.

London of that day presented a Byzantine playground of lonely alleys, poorly lit cul de sacs, forgotten doorways where human life could end quickly, silently, a ruby feast on the tongue. Eric took his time; lacking a companion robbed him of none of his pleasure. In fact, without the burden of Godric's disinterest and Adam's outright disapproval, he was free to indulge, to savor. He worked his way through a rum-addled sailor on leave, a pretty young whore with a bedraggled feather in her hair, an urchin who'd come willingly at the promise of a few coppers. By the time he returned to the lodging house, he was so sated he could feel the sheen of his own power, every part of him vital with strength.

He was not the only one lost in satisfaction.

Outside the room, he could hear them before he'd even opened the door, airy sounds and low guttural groans, strangely human, so out of place here. Eric could have turned around, walked away, returned later—but this confrontation had been a long time coming, since the moment when Godric first sank his teeth into Adam's neck, and Eric had never backed down from anything, not a tough fight or a hard truth.

The two of them lay naked on the bed. Adam bent over Godric, his spine sharply arched. In the guttering candlelight, his pale skin gleamed, the freckles on his back intricate and everywhere, like the constellations in a night sky. He kissed Godric's belly, tenderly, put his mouth on Godric's cock, his hand resting familiarly on Godric's thigh. The look on his face was playful, curious, and Godric watched as Adam licked, sucked, caressed, his hand fondly touching Adam's cheek, his forehead creased with concentration as if he were trying to decipher a mystery of the universe.

When Eric was made, he woke up with inhuman hunger, not just for blood, but for the meaning that could only come from his source. The need for oneness swamped him, the compulsive urge to merge, to give, to take, Godric in him, him in Godric, body to body, blood for blood. They hunted and feasted and fucked, and Eric gloried in the beautiful contradiction, that he was dead and had never been more alive.

Even in _this_ , Adam was made wrong, every touch, every kiss light and flirtatious, the ministrations of a dandy, so, so— _human_. And this with _Godric_ , who was Eric's source, who was still so very necessary to him. Eric growled, low in his throat, a territorial declaration. He moved so fast the air felt liquid, drops on his skin as he shed his clothes. He made a place for himself on the bed, taking was what _his_ , pressed against Godric's back, hands between Godric's thighs, dick inside him, moving, merging, urgently.

"Eric." Godric reached back for him, touching Eric's face with light fingers, the same way he had Adam's, his voice promising, _your father, your brother, your child_ , as if nothing were different between them.

Adam continued to kiss and touch Godric: his lips and his chin, tracing the lines of ink over Godric's collarbones, the tip of his pink tongue teasing Godric's nipple, his palm wrapped around Godric's cock. Never once did his gaze waver from Eric, his eyes dark and huge and wanting. _We don't have to be enemies_. Because Adam understood nothing about their kind, and he probably never would. When Eric came inside Godric, it felt empty and final.

At the approaching dawn, they settled down to sleep, and when Eric woke again he was still tangled in Godric. He left the bed with care and dressed and went downstairs. If Godric had exerted his will only a little, laid claim to what had always been his, Eric would not have been able to stir past the threshold. But Godric let him go, and he passed into the night, into the world, alone, not even a fragile tendril of the past to hold him.

Everything changed. Even Death.

Adam never asks if he can perform at Fangtasia; he just commandeers the stage like he owns the place.

"I have a business to run," Eric harangues him the first time, without much bite. "Customers who come here for the entertainment." ____spacer____

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Adam rolls his eyes. "Yeah, we wouldn't want the pole-dancing aficionados to go away disappointed."

Tonight Adam is dressed like a Hollywood version of the French aristocrat he once was, billowing sleeves, silver thread decorating the intricately tied collar, black pants tight as skin, the fly laced like a corset, practically begging someone to pull it open. Two hundred years haven't changed Adam's voice in the slightest. It's still startlingly beautiful, and it takes over the place, insidious that way, as intimate as a curl of cigarette smoke in an empty room with rumpled sheets.

The crowd stops everything else to listen, gaping, eyes glazed, in thrall—even the hopeless ones who'll go home with dried vomit on their clothes, even the desperate cases who come in every night with bruises on their necks and a pleading pick-me smile for every vampire in the bar. Adam sings French torch songs, throaty and emotional, and even though Eric would bet there's no one who has a clue what any of it means, they all listen like Adam is singing just for them, like the words might change their lives.

Eric tends to business with a purposeful air, not watching, not missing a thing: the shape of Adam's soft, pink mouth on every syllable, the way Adam's eyes close in concentration and he runs his hands over himself making most everyone in the place suck in an anticipatory breath. Most everyone, except Eric, who has _business_ , very pressing, and maybe that's why Adam does it, to get Eric's attention, why he changes gears so abruptly, from songs about prostitutes and love to _Allons enfants de la Patrie,  
le jour de gloire est arrive !_

Fangtasia recedes, and Eric is standing on a rutted, frozen street two hundred years ago, the dusty odor of old straw in the air, the sharp stink of shit. Adam's voice rises and falls incongruously, rich and lilting on the strident words, and for a moment, Eric can feel Godric's presence again, physical and familiar. When the illusion dissolves, it emphasizes the emptiness at Eric's side, the shape of the absence.

The crowd doesn't quite know what to make of this anthem, but when Adam finishes, they clap wildly anyway. He descends from the stage, and they throng around, wanting to touch him or fumble a few words, _That was—_ , but they don't know how to finish. Adam listens, nodding and smiling, and the whole time he doesn't take his eyes off Eric.

Eventually he manages to slip free of his worshippers and orders a True Blood, lounging against the bar, right there at Eric's side, also familiar and so very physical, but not quite the right shape to blot out the absence.

"What was that?" Eric asks, not looking up from his purchase orders.

"I was feeling nostalgic." There's a careless shrug in his voice.

Eric raises an eyebrow. "For the guillotine?"

"Sometimes things need to change." His voice goes lower, like this is significant and somehow urgent, and Eric doesn't know if Adam means long ago or now, but he can feel Adam's gaze lingering.

Until it shifts away sharply, and Eric does look up then to see what's caught Adam's attention.

Near the entrance, a small blond human has run into a wall of vampires, three of them—the weak, useless sort who hang around Fangtasia in the unlikely hopes that Eric will one day have need of them, amusing themselves in the meantime menacing the human customers. They stare at the blond boy like they can already taste him.

"Tommy," Adam says. In three long strides he's crossed the room and positioned himself between the blond and the blockheads.

The biggest, stupidest of the trio takes a step toward Adam, baring his fangs. "Get the fuck away from our food, boy, and this doesn't have to get ugly."

Eric laughs, because when was the last time anyone called Adam "boy"? And then he laughs harder when Adam says, so very like himself, "Things got ugly the minute you three stepped foot in here."

The blockhead bristles and nods to his companions, ready to go on the attack, because there are three of them and Adam looks like Lord Byron amidst the plaid and trucker caps, a harmless songbird blown off course. Of course, Eric knows what these idiots don't, that appearances can be so very deceiving, that no one should ever underestimate Adam.

When he bares his fangs and hisses, there's a palpable wave of power to back it up. Eric feels the scorch of it all the way across the room. "This human belongs to me." His voice, so light and sensual while he was singing, shakes the floor now, and the three morons blanche, belatedly recognizing what Adam truly is.

Adam apparently still feels the need to demonstrate his ownership, and he grabs the blond human by the hair, exposes his neck, and sinks his fangs into tender flesh. "Adam," the human sighs, high and breathy, melting back, his eyes fluttering closed, a dreamy expression slipping over his features. Adam splays a hand possessively across the human while he drinks, a _keep out_ sign, and when Adam pulls away with a final lick to the human's throat, he spells it out for the morons in case they've missed it. "If you even look at him, I'll make you sorry."

The trio, who'd been frozen in place during Adam's little demonstration, snap back to their senses. Whatever feeble survival impulse they have finally kicks in, and they scuttle off like cockroaches. Eric is _almost_ tempted to admire Adam, but of course Adam has to go and ruin it by getting sentimental over the human.

"Tommy!" Adam wraps the human up in his arms, pulling him close, stroking a hand over his back. "You okay? They didn't hurt you, did they?"

The human shakes his head in a daze, a big, loopy smile as he nuzzles at Adam's jaw, hearts shining out of his eyes, which just makes Adam's hen-like fussing all the more ridiculous. If the human were any more okay, there'd be a come stain on the front of his jeans.

Adam doesn't stop touching him though, lightly, everywhere, as if reassuring himself that the human is still in one piece.

"Missed you," the human murmurs, snuggling closer.

"Missed you too, baby. Hey." Adam tips the boy's chin up to look him in the eye. "I thought you were going to stay back in L.A. Water the azaleas for me."

The bleariness clears from the human's eyes, and his expression goes stubborn. "That was your plan. I never agreed to it."

"I'm just trying to look out for you." Adam hugs the boy closer.

Eric rolls his eyes, because only Adam would put on a display of strength to scare off three vampires and then allow his human companion to disobey him without even batting an eye.

The two of them settle at the bar. Adam orders the blond boy a drink, and they hang on each other like teenagers. Eric wonders if it would do any good to remind Adam that he's over two hundred years old.

"I've been talking to Monte, by the way," the human says, trying to sound nonchalant and failing completely, just as Adam fails at glaring at him. "Oh, don't give me that look—yeah, I'm conspiring behind your back with one of your best friends, sue me. Adam… he's ready whenever you are. He's pulled together a band. They're just waiting for the word. We could leave for New York tonight. The Queen there, Monte's heard of her too. Like you said, she's totally into music and freedom and bringing people together and stuff. Come on, Adam. Let's just go." The boy bites his lip, looking pleadingly at Adam.

Eric can't imagine why Adam hesitates. Queen Stefani Joanne Angelina, the lunatic who rules New York, should be just to his tastes. Practically a celebrity in her own right, she holds court in a rundown former sequin factory known as the House of GaGa, collecting poets and hipsters and freaks of all persuasions, humans and vampires on equal terms—the only requirement that they're interesting. She calls it art. Eric calls it an embarrassment to vampires everywhere.

"You can make them love you," the boy insists fervently. "Show them vampire or human, it doesn't have to matter."

The boy doesn't know Adam very well if he believes this is something Adam hasn't done before. He's never been able to stay away from the human world, and they always love him. Maybe this time he'll go on one of those TV singing competitions or something, Eric thinks with an amused sneer.

"It could be so—"

Adam takes the boy's chin firmly in hand and kisses the rest of that sentence right out of him. "Let's talk about this later, okay?"

"Mm," the human murmurs, arms sliding around Adam's neck as he chases another kiss and another and another…

Adam laughs, low and throaty. "Okay, baby. Maybe we should _talk_ about this now. Down the hall, second room on the left. I'll be right there."

The boy beams happily and insists on one more kiss before heading off.

Adam comes to stand beside Eric at the bar, and much to Eric's surprise, asks, "Is it okay if he stays here? It'll just be a few days."

Asking permission is not particularly Adam's style, and Eric gives him a long, considering look before shrugging. "He's your human. I take it this means you'll be leaving soon?"

"Not just yet." He meets Eric's eye. "I haven't got what I came for." His mouth curves up slowly, impudently, and then he's gone, crossing the room, disappearing down the hall.

Adam could be talking about so many things, Eric realizes, and he's not sure he likes any of the possibilities.

The night he left Godric, Eric didn't set out with the intention of making his own progeny. He didn't go looking for Pam, not in any conscious way. Just one day there she was, a cascade of satin and tulle as she descended from a carriage, her back straight, chin at a defiant angle even as chaperones hemmed her in, cutting her off from the world. Eric watched until she'd disappeared inside the opera house and lingered for a while afterward as if the air still held her shape.

He watched her from then on, with the discipline of someone who'd once planned battles, who knew how to gather intelligence and spin it into a strategy for achieving his objectives. He studied her family's house, a prim fortress of pale stone and carved pilasters, with its rigorous routine, morning callers and afternoon tea and evening parties, servants quietly moving in the background, severe in starched black-and-white uniforms.

Pam looked every bit the grand young lady in her pale summer dresses that floated around her, a cloud of lace, her broad-brimmed hats with their bows and feathers, but Eric had a military eye, and he saw the mutiny in her. He saw the fleeting expression when she thought no one was looking, sharp and intelligent, although a proper young lady was supposed to think about nothing more weighty than fashion and the weather. He noticed when her gaze lingered on the boy who drove the carriage, someone she should have looked right through. Sometimes he caught her distracted, staring into the air, as if she were imagining how everything could be different. ____spacer____

____spacer____

Perhaps this was what Godric had felt all those years ago, watching Eric on the battlefield, although the war Pam was fighting was very different, her opponent the deadly stranglehold of expectations. Godric had given Eric what he loved most. Eric could do the same for Pam. He could give her freedom.

People who'd never waged a campaign mistakenly believed that courage was the most important military virtue, but really it was patience. Eric had learned that long ago, chafing at it in his youth. Eternity had made waiting easier, and he bided his time, looking for a moment when he could get Pam alone, out of the shadow of servants and chaperones. He took up a position in the back garden; a thicket of trees and some strong suggestion kept him hidden as he watched the path that ran from the main house to the smaller one where the coachman slept. Pam, he felt certain, had walked that path before, and would again.

She showed a gift for strategy all her own, waiting for the dark of the moon, an overcast sky, a black cloak pulled around her that made her fade into the night. He felt proud of her for that, even before she was his. When he grabbed her around the waist, slid his hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out, she didn't faint. She bit him. He carried her away to a spot he'd scouted before, a graveyard where no one would disturb them, and when he bent over her, fangs out, she didn't look afraid. She looked furious. As he sank into her neck, tasted her blood, he knew, as Godric must have known: _This is it. This is the one._

Afterward, once he'd explained to her, what had happened and what it meant, she laughed. "Oh, thank God. Now can we please get out of London? I've wanted to see something, anything besides England since I was old enough to walk."

They went everywhere. Florence. Madrid. The coast of Turkey with its turquoise water that glittered in the moonlight. It felt odd to have this experience from the other side, teaching Pam to hunt, to fight, to use her vampire instincts. When he thought back on his early days with Godric, the way Godric's eyes would shine and he'd murmur _beautiful, beautiful_ at every new thing Eric learned, it all made sense now. Pam hunted gleefully at his side, gorgeously bloodthirsty, and after a particularly thrilling evening out, sated with blood, she'd topple Eric onto the bed and clamber on top of him and hold his wrists down, because she knew he would let her.

At times, he still wondered about Godric and Adam, where they were, what they were doing, but it was different now. Godric's absence didn't echo inside him with the same desperate emptiness, because he had Pam. Because he was someone's source.

In the mountains of Bavaria, they stayed at a public house that catered to vampires, passing the days tucked away in a beautiful windowless room with a carved bed and a feather mattress. Snow began to fall the second night after they'd arrived, and ice crystals glistened in Pam's hair as they roamed the countryside, surprising lonely travelers trying to make their way to shelter, the red stain of blood blooming across the fresh snow like roses.

Eric sensed the presence when they were still miles away from the inn, through the satisfied languor of having just fed, the prickly consciousness growing stronger as they stepped through the door, up the stairs. Godric stood by the fireplace, gazing into the flames, as if he could see things no one else could. It overwhelmed Eric then, the reality of Godric's presence, burning away the nagging sense of absence, the way a human might cauterize a wound, and he fell to his knees before his maker.

"My child." Godric touched his cheek.

Eric pressed into the touch, and it didn't seem to matter that nothing had changed, that the questions Eric couldn't understand still lingered in Godric's eyes. He didn't need Godric to be everything to him, not when he had Pam, not when the two of them made him feel like a scale settling perfectly into balance.

Godric's mouth curved into a small smile, as if he understood. "Who is this?"

Pam stood frozen in the doorway, her eyes huge with shock, to see Eric on his knees, to feel the power coming off Godric. Eric rose, and held out his hand to her, and said her name, and the moment felt complete, like the closing of a circle.

They never spoke of Adam, and Eric never asked where Godric went when he disappeared for days or weeks at a time and came back smelling like vanilla and cedar and sunshine. Eric heard the rumors from other vampires of course, the whispers among humans, not that Eric couldn't have predicted it for himself; Adam had gone native.

He and Pam continued to travel, sometimes with Godric, sometimes not, and everywhere there seemed to be evidence of Adam. Paris was much different since the last time Eric had been there, since the dead dove in the road. Motorcars rattled over the streets, and people streamed along the sidewalks, a bouquet of sweat and busyness and delicious copper so close beneath the skin.

They followed home a wealthy merchant, dressed in black tails and starched white shirt, red-faced and weak with wine. At the door, Pam smiled at the man, and whispered, "Invite us in," and after they'd feasted, they wandered the rooms of the man's house, looking at the priceless objects he'd so carefully collected, which seemed ridiculous now that this guts were strewn across the Persian carpet in the parlor. Eric found the painting in the man's study, hanging by itself on a wall, a particularly valuable treasure. It was of a figure, naked and male, half turned away, with wings and a familiar shock of black hair. The brass plate on the frame read: "Fallen Angel." ____spacer____

____spacer____

In Vienna, they heard excited stories about the previous year's opera season, a mysterious tenor who'd startled the breath out of everyone in the pin-silent auditorium every night for a week and then disappeared, never to be heard of again.

The trail went cold for a while and then picked up again across the ocean, where the twentieth century smelled like coal smoke and ambition. Chicago was a busy, striving place with tall buildings puncturing the sky and grain-fed victims making easy pickings in the shadows of the many whorehouses and speakeasies. Music seemed to be everywhere, on street corners and spilling out of windows, not like anything Eric had ever heard before, a tangle of rhythms, the sound of the new world. Musicians had been streaming up from New Orleans, and people dimly recalled a man with dark hair and a love of dramatic jackets whispering in the ears of nightclub owners, "That's the future you're hearing. Let them play every night."

In New York, a gossip column mentioned a dilettante who'd been a regular at Café Society for a few months until the night he reportedly began to cry tears of blood and quickly fled, never to be seen again. It was the same night a whiskey-voiced black woman first sang a song about lynching.

Eric lost track after that, until San Francisco, a few decades ago. He and Pam feasted their way through the leavings of peace, love and understanding, whole buildings of burnt-out hippies, tasting their drug-dazed hallucinations in every drop. It was purely chance that Eric noticed the magazine crumpled on the floor of one of the flophouses, splashed with gore, but the picture was still clear: some rock star at a party, a tall, thin man with cheekbones like knives wearing a jumpsuit and orange boots. Beside him, barely in the frame of the photo, just a shoulder, the fringe of hair.

Pam peered over Eric's shoulder, blood smearing her mouth. "Is that him?"

"Who?" He'd never mentioned Adam to her.

"The other boy."

He stared at her. "I have no idea what you mean."

She laughed. "You know, you're not as mysterious as you like to think you are."

Later, Eric found a copy of the rock star's record, Ziggy something, and as he listened, he could hear Adam behind the notes, like a game of hide and seek.

"Fuck me! Harder. Oh God, Adam, please!"

A few days with Adam's human in the place, it turns out, means hearing this, high and breathy and seeping through the walls, at least three times a night, and Eric understands now why Adam asked for permission, the sneaky bastard.

Pam leans against the bar, twirling a strand of hair around her finger, watching Yvetta practice her pole routine more distractedly than she usually does.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God!" The human's voice builds, louder and more desperate, to a final, wall-rattling wail.

"This just goes to show why telling people to get a room doesn't solve anything," Pam deadpans, and then she lets out a long sigh. "Two men going at it really shouldn't do anything for me, but—" She crooks her finger at Yvetta, with a big smile. "Come here, honey. I need you to help me with something in the storeroom. Oh, and lose that gum."

Pam sweeps Yvetta off to the back, and after a while, Adam and his human come out to the bar. Adam's arm is wrapped around the human's waist, and despite this, the human sways on his feet. Honestly, Eric is surprised he can walk at all. There are no marks left on his neck, though, because Adam is Adam, and he'll always be a caretaker where his humans are concerned.

Adam walks the human to the door and pulls him into a tight hug. "So you're going to go back to LA and wait for me there," he murmurs into blond hair. "I need you to do that for me, okay?"

The human nods, but he knots his hand in Adam's T-shirt. "You _are_ coming back, right? And then we're going to New York? Promise me."

Adam kisses him, taking his time, hands moving in the human's hair, touching his face. "I promise, baby." They hug again, and then the human goes on his way.

"Thanks for being patient about that," Adam tells Eric, as he sprawls onto a stool at the bar.

"You could have mentioned he was loud before I said he could stay," Eric points out.

"Why would I do that?" Adam grins mischievously. "And you really didn't doubt my ability to make a man scream, did you?"

His gaze lingers, and Eric can read his expression, like a page in a book: _I could make you scream, if you'd just let me_.

"I never underestimate your appeal where humans are concerned," Eric says stiffly, looking away.

Adam lets out a sigh. "Fine. Be that way. I'll be in my room if you change your mind."

The clock hits nine, and customers start to drift in. Pam eventually saunters back from the storeroom, breezy and looking pleased with herself. Yvetta goes to work on the pole, flashing come-hither looks at the patrons and the occasional smile at Pam. The night settles into its predictable rhythm, music thumping out of the speakers, bodies close-packed on the dance floor. Eric watches with a satisfied tilt at the corner of his mouth. His domain.

"Eric Northman!" A high, distressed voice interrupts his reverie.

"Oh, please," Pam says with disgust. "Not another overwrought human. Enough is enough already." She walks off, leaving Eric to deal with Sookie on his own.

"Miss Stackhouse," Eric says with formal politeness. "What brings you to Fangtasia tonight? Perhaps you'd like a drink?"

Sookie waves off the offer, determined and impatient, the way she so often is. "It's about Bill."

"Of course it is." Eric barely holds back a sigh. "Should we talk in my office? It's quieter there."

Sookie follows him to the back. Eric closes the door and turns around with a raised eyebrow. "Now, what's the problem?"

"I don't know!" She brushes a hand through her hair, frazzled. "He's been acting all weird lately, and when I ask him about it, all he'll say is that it's vampire stuff and I shouldn't worry about it. But how am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to just pretend there's nothing wrong? I need to know what's going on, and I want you to tell me." She fixes a look on him, like she has no doubt he can give her answers.

And, really, it's not so hard to imagine what's troubling Compton, caught between what he wants and what the Queen demands. Eric understands that well. He's just not so sure that Sookie will understand it.

"I have no idea what could be bothering him," Eric lies, his voice smooth and tinged with surprise. She lifts her chin, sets her jaw, and he holds up a hand before she can get insistent. "But if it means that much to you, I'll look into it, see what I can find out."

The tense line of her shoulders softens. "Thank you," she says, mollified. "I'd appreciate it."

Eric nods, and Sookie opens the door to leave, and standing right outside the office is Adam, curiosity written all his face. He gives Sookie a smile, a pinch between his eyebrows, because he always has been perceptive, and he must sense, as Eric did the first time he met her, that Sookie's no garden-variety human.

"Hi there," Sookie says, returning Adam's curious stare for a moment before going on her way.

Adam watches her walk off, and then barges into Eric's office, not waiting for an invitation, closing the door behind him. "What's going on?"

Eric settles at his desk, shoulders squared imperiously. "I didn't remember eavesdropping being one of your faults."

Adam crosses his arms over his chest. "Yeah, well, I _know_ helping humans isn't one of your virtues, so what are you up to, Eric? What do you want from that girl? If you think I'm just going to stand by and watch while she gets fucked over, you really have forgotten who I am."

A good offense makes the best defense; that's as true in moments like this as it is in battle, and while Adam is smart and strong, he's never had a head for strategy. "What are _you_ up to? And how is the Queen involved? Is that why you're here? To report back to her?"

Adam stares, stunned. "No, no. Eric. It's not—it has nothing to do with you. I wouldn't, ever—"

Eric can see it's the truth; Adam wouldn't betray him. He's as misbegotten a vampire in this as he is in his fondness for humans.

"What does she want with you, Adam?" Eric asks again, more quietly.

Adam lets out his breath. "It's all a big misunderstanding, really."

A percussive boom that sounds suspiciously like an explosion interrupts the explanation, and then Pam is shouting, "Eric!"

He moves in a flash back out to the bar, Adam at his side, and finds the front door flung off its hinges. That's hardly necessary since they're _open for business_ , but the Queen's sledgehammer-faced minion hasn't gotten any smarter since the other day. This time, he's brought reinforcements, uglier and more dimwitted than he is, and he stands there on the threshold of Fangtasia looking pleased with himself and spoiling for a fight.

"What is the meaning of this?" Eric demands. "I've assured her majesty that I'm doing everything I can—"

"This isn't about you. We're here for _him_." He nods at Adam.

Eric looks to Adam, who makes a wry face and shrugs, as if to say, _What are you going to do? Sometimes the Queen of Louisiana just sends her minions after you._ He certainly doesn't appear surprised by the development.

"Hand him over, and we won't have to smash up the place," Sledgehammer Face promises, obviously hoping that Eric won't take him up on the deal.

Adam goes still at Eric's side. There's hurt in his face, but also resignation, and Eric should give him what he's expecting. Should just hand him over. Not because it's easier, but because Eric was once a king. He understands: orders are given, and orders are obeyed, and that's how the world keeps spinning. Anything else is chaos. That's why he's never challenged Sophie-Anne's authority, although he's a thousand years old and immeasurably stronger than she is. Loyalty is the fragile thread civilization hangs on, just as true now as it was when Eric was human.

And what claim does Adam have anyway? He and Eric are opposite poles, nothing in common, nothing to connect them. Except for the fact that Adam tastes like the beginning.

Which is, Eric finds, all that really matters.

The Queen's idiot minion never sees it coming; Eric moves faster than time itself, and Sledgehammer Face leaves a person-shaped dent in the wall. It takes Adam a second to get over his surprise, and then he joins the melee, yelling instructions at the humans in the room as he takes on two of Sophie-Anne's thugs, "Get out of here. Go, go!"

There's a stampede to the door, and Eric uses the distraction to send another dimwitted minion flying across the room. He lands with a satisfying splat. Pam joins in the fight too, and maybe it's the pink strappy dress she's wearing that makes the thug she's going up against underestimate her. About a second into the contest, she throws him down to the ground, her hand around his throat, her spiked heel leaving an imprint on his stomach.

Adam on one side of him, and Pam on the other, and Eric feels what he never expected to again: the sense of a circle closing.

Eventually, the minions figure out that they're vastly outmatched. They limp away, dragging their fallen comrades, and for a moment after they've gone, Eric, Pam and Adam just stand there, surprised it's over.

Pam finally breaks the standoff of silence. "Well, I've chipped a nail," she says, examining it with disgust. "I hope you're both happy."

"Honey, the way you kicked ass, I will get you the best damned manicure money can buy," Adam tells her, with a deeply admiring glance.

Pam tilts her head, as she considers the offer. "All right. But I get to pick the manicurist. I want one who tastes good."

Adam winces. "Maybe we can discuss the details later?"

But Pam is already walking away. "And don't expect me to clean up this mess, either."

Once she's gone, Adam turns a look on Eric that is just as sappy and pleased as Eric might have expected, Adam's face practically glowing, his smile blinding.

"You owe me an explanation," Eric tells him brusquely. He really doesn't want to have a _moment_.

"Yeah, so. About that." Adam takes a big breath. "The last time I paid Queen Sophie-Anne a visit, I might have left just a teensy-tiny bit," he pinches his fingers together until there's only a sliver of light between them, "before she was finished with me. But in my defense, she made me sing 'The Glow Worm' about a million times. I've never been so bored in my life."

Eric stares at him. "How were you able to get out of the palace without her permission?"

"Oh, you know. The guards weren't all that hard to distract." He drops his voice suggestively, giving Eric a look through his lashes.

It's just Adam being Adam, and Eric doesn't know why this is it, what sets him off. Maybe he doesn't want to think about anyone else's hands on Adam, not when they're fresh from battle, not when he can still feel Adam fighting at his side, the shape of his presence, which isn't the cure for anything Eric has lost, but is familiar and wanted just the same.

He leaps at Adam, and they fly across the room, hitting the floor hard enough to make it shake. Questions flicker through Adam's eyes in that fraction of a second it takes Eric to fist his hand in Adam's shirt and force their mouths together.

"Oh, fuck yes," Adam murmurs against Eric's mouth, kissing back. "So much better than fighting."

What Eric wants from Adam is still a question that's hard to answer, but this is a start, Adam under him, the long line of his body, muscles bunching and flexing as Adam pushes up against him, grabbing, grinding. Eric goes for Adam's throat, the sweet spurt of blood on his tongue, _Godric_ , but it's more than that. It's Adam, as infuriating as he can be, moaning as Eric laps at his neck, gripping Eric's shoulders, sinking his teeth into Eric, taking, tasting, completing the circuit.

They writhe against each other, hips pressed hotly together, and Eric would fuck him right there, on the bar floor, on the battlefield where they sent the enemy fleeing. He would, except he's a vampire and was once a king, and that makes him a territorial son of a bitch. He needs to fuck Adam in Adam's own bed, to vanquish the other lovers who have been there before him.

He grabs Adam by the arm and blurs them into his room.

It's been a long time since he's done this with a vampire, and he suddenly remembers the special pleasure that comes with not having to be careful of his strength. He tears their clothes off and kisses Adam hard enough to break a human and pushes him down onto the bed, kneeling between his legs. Eric's favorite place on the body is the inside of the thigh, the delicate crease where it meets the hip, the way blood always tastes a little sweeter there. He licks his way up from Adam's knee, and Adam cries out when Eric sinks in his teeth, grabbing at Eric's hair, begging, _Please, please_. His cock brushes Eric's cheek, leaving a wet trail, and as Eric drinks, he can feel Adam get harder.

Blood isn't the only thing he wants to taste, and he lifts his head, retracts his fangs, and licks his lips. Adam props himself up on his elbows, watching, eyes wide and dark, waiting. Eric leans up and bites one of Adam's nipples, tight and penny-dark, working it with his tongue. Adam sinks his fingers into Eric's hair, holding fiercely. "Eric," he moans.

In a thousand years, there have been very few people who have said Eric's name like that, intimately, with the force of history behind it. He presses his hand against his own cock and kisses his way down to Adam's, running his tongue along its length, the taste of sex mixing with the lingering flavor of blood in his mouth.

"Fuck," Adam gasps out softly, his hands gripping Eric's shoulders as Eric starts to suck. "Do you know how long I've waited for you to do that?"

Maybe Eric has been waiting just as long, but he's not going to admit it. Instead, he's going to drag as many desperate sounds out of Adam as he can, with his tongue and his throat and his fingers. Adam grabs Eric's hair, trying to take charge, trying to ride his mouth. Eric braces his hands on Adam's thighs, holding him still, pulling back until he's teasing just the head. Adam snarls insistently, and Eric smiles. Maybe he has always wanted to have Adam coming to pieces in his hands.

Of course, Adam is always a complication, and there's nothing like submission in his nature. In a flash the room tilts and Eric finds himself on his back with Adam kneeling over him, grinning.

"Honey, two can totally play at that game." He runs his hands up Eric's sides, staring intently, as if memorizing the geography of Eric's body.

"Is that all you've got?" Eric says, with a slightly mocking smile, because Adam always rises to a challenge.

Adam arches an eyebrow, as if it say, _Seriously?_ "Oh, I'm going to show you what I've got," he promises, circling his thumbs in maddening little circles around Eric's nipples, tighter, tighter, until he's finally touching, using his nails, making the flesh stiffen, making Eric arch his back and call out for more.

"So fucking gorgeous," Adam whispers, his breath warm on Eric's collarbone, against his ribs, trailing down over Eric's stomach.

"Adam," Eric says sternly, an order.

Which is, of course, a waste of time, because this is Adam, who smiles, eyes bright blue with mischief, and puts his mouth all over Eric's thighs, murmuring "Mm," again and again, as if Eric's frustration tastes good.

Eric yanks him by the hair, and Adam puts on an innocent face that would be unbelievable in the best of circumstances and is utterly laughable when he's naked and hard and looking like one definition of sin. "Oh, did you want something?"

A growl seems like the only appropriate response, and Adam laughs and runs his hand up Eric's thigh and bends his head. "I've been waiting forever for this too." The puff of his breath on Eric's cock sends a white-hot shot of pleasure all through Eric, and when Adam stretches out his tongue to lick, Eric knots his hand in Adam's thick, soft hair and makes some urgent noises of his own.

Adam murmurs happily and starts to suck in earnest, slow on the way down and with a sweet, maddening twist on the way back up, sounds spilling out of him, obscene and perfect. Eric jerks his hips, fucking, and Adam lets him, which feels like triumph, until Adam's fingers start to wander, past Eric's balls, sneaky and expert, rubbing at his hole, sending shock waves up his spine.

It feels good, and it would be so easy to yield, but Eric hasn't been playing a game of chicken with Adam for two hundred years to lose now. He hooks a leg behind Adam's knees and pushes at his shoulder, flipping their bodies, retaking control with a determined hiss.

Adam smirks up at him, eyes bright and amused. "Okay, fine. We can do it your way. This time." He slides his hand around to the back of Eric's neck and pulls him down, and they kiss, for a good, long time, the wet, soft sound of it loud in the quiet room. Adam's body feels just as amazing beneath Eric's as he might have imagined—if he admitted to thinking about such things—and he moves, slowly at first, and then more determinedly, skin meeting skin, his cock slipping wetly against Adam's strong thigh.

"Please," Adam murmurs, soft and vulnerable, and from any other vampire that would seem practiced, a ploy, but Adam isn't any other vampire, and want clenches Eric's belly, hot and undeniable.

He presses his face against Adam's neck, touches his tongue to the spot he bit before which is healed now. He doesn't sink in his teeth, just explores the place on Adam where he left his mark, however fleeting. Adam draws in a sharp breath, realizing, and he strokes Eric's neck with his fingers, and then his tongue, and Eric feels it again, that circuit-closing sense of completion.

Maybe Godric still has one thing left to teach Eric, even after. Maybe the lesson here is that it is possible to trust a vampire you didn't make. Maybe everything does change, even Eric.

The moment he thinks this, of course, Adam takes the opportunity to turn the tables again, forcing Eric over onto his back, straddling Eric's hips.

"Compromise," he says when Eric glares, and then he sits back onto Eric's cock, and Eric arches into him, cursing and shaking.

"Is that all you've got?" Adam says, with a lopsided little smile.

Eric has never backed down from a challenge either—that at least will never change—and he grips Adam's hips and pounds up into him. Which must be exactly what Adam wants, because he throws his head back and pushes down into every thrust, muttering, "Fuck, yes. Eric."

Vampire strength pitted against vampire strength, and they fuck until the floor shakes and plaster is jarred loose from the walls and the bed groans like it might collapse. Adam leans down for a kiss, and Eric puts his hands everywhere, all over Adam, leaving his prints on Adam's skin. When Adam seizes and cries out, "Oh, fuck," he has Eric's fist wrapped around his cock, gripping, pulling the orgasm out of him, and then Adam's body is clenching, returning the favor.

Afterward, Adam lolls lazily in bed, his head on Eric's chest, seemingly no intention of going anywhere anytime soon. Of course, it is _his_ room, so if someone is going to get up, it should be Eric. He doesn't, though. He lets Adam snuggle closer, and if occasionally he strokes his palm along Adam's forearm or presses a kiss into Adam's hair, it's nothing he'll admit later.

"Your human," he finds himself asking, not even sure why, "are you going to turn him?"

He feels Adam stiffen in his arms. "I might," he says carefully, "if Tommy really wanted me to."

"Has he asked you?"

"No. The closest he's come is asking what it's like. To be a vampire."

"What did you tell him?"

"That it's a very long, annoyingly coherent acid trip," Adam says wryly.

Eric shakes his head. "You're made wrong. Have I ever told you that?"

Adam laughs. "It might have come up once or twice."

"Adam." He tilts Adam's chin up, so he can look him in the eye. "You should turn him," he says seriously, meaning it.

Meaning: _You should have someone. I don't want you to be alone._

Adam's eyes go wider, and he smiles softly and kisses Eric's mouth. "That's so sweet."

Eric gives him a hard look, because there is nothing remotely sweet about him. Adam keeps smiling anyway and kisses him again, and then his expression grows solemn, his gaze never leaving Eric. "Tell me what happened."

"You know what happened," Eric tells him tiredly, and starts to pull away, but Adam won't be budged.

"I need to hear it from you," Adam insists.

Eric sets his jaw and for a moment considers ignoring the faint hint of begging in Adam's voice, but he can't. Because, as hard as Eric has tried to deny it, Godric belonged to Adam too. "You know how he struggled with what we are. He wanted our kind to change, and when we didn't, or couldn't, he—you always understood that better than I did."

 _And I hated you for it._ He doesn't need to add that. They both know.

"Except I didn't really understand at all," Adam says, a pinch between his eyebrows. "Not the way—Godric saw it completely differently. He thought what we needed was to evolve, to be something else entirely, not human or vampire. And I thought—it's about remembering for me. Who we once were. Who we wanted to be."

"Godric said I'd understand when I was as old as he was," Eric says quietly.

"Do you think you will?" Adam regards him curiously.

Eric's mouth pulls into a thin smile, and it hurts like hell. "Not if I live forever."

In the early, overwhelming days of Eric's second life, he existed as a frenzy of hunger, blind carnality, instinct driving him from kill to kill and then back to the pleasures of Godric's body. When they fucked, it was an erotic act of violence, fingers tearing at skin, bodies clashing, voices bruised with cursing, Godric's eyes shining with a brilliant, unholy light, blissfully savage. If Eric remembered anything at all about his human self, it felt distant and unimportant.

Gradually, though, Eric's animal nature began to quiet—not that he had any less lust for blood or for Godric—but there were enough chinks in the hunger for wisps of his humanity to sneak back in, things he'd forgotten completely. At first, it was only physical memories, how food used to feel in his mouth, the way his eyes would squeeze tightly shut in bright sunlight; but then other ghosts began to return to him, the frailties of flesh and blood, things like longing and uncertainty and regret.

Only chinks, and Eric did his best to push those memories away and focus on the vicious joys of his new existence.

He and Godric made their way along the rim of the North Sea, traveling farther than Eric had ever dared as a human. In the Orkney Islands, they stumbled onto a farm, a loose collection of buildings blanketed by snow, the soft bleating of sheep like a lullaby under the frozen, starry sky. The damp chill in the air did nothing to tamp down the delicious scent of humans wafting from the house, and Eric followed Godric, moving with lethal silence, around the rough side of the stone building to the door.

It was the same as always once they were inside, striking before anyone knew what was happening, the two of them a vicious blur cutting through the family like a blade. Futile human shrieks shook the walls, the intoxicating scent of terror thick in the close space, blood everywhere, splashed on the ceiling and smeared in Eric's hair and soaking into the hard-packed dirt floor.

Same as always, only not, because Eric froze, hijacked by the past in the middle of all that beautiful mayhem. Maybe it was the color of the woman's hair, strands of cooper spun with gold, the way it floated on the air when she turned her head. Maybe it was the shape of the man's jaw, solid and uncompromising. Suddenly, Eric was somewhere else entirely, and the floor there was also littered with bodies, but nothing about the slaughterhouse smell in the air struck him as delicious.

"Eric?" Godric's voice drifted over to him like a curl of smoke.

Eric couldn't answer. The sounds in the room—a girl's high, insistent wail, the wet death rattle from gasping lungs—made it impossible to think. A cold, shocked sensation kept threatening to creep up his throat and choke him.

Godric finished off the remaining humans with expedient swiftness. This was one of the first things he'd taught Eric: never leave living witnesses. Eric could only look on uselessly, and the stink of death grew steadily more oppressive. He felt his stomach rebelling as if… but that wasn't possible. Only humans threw up.

A barn stood in the lee of the house, and Godric pulled Eric by the arm, up into the hayloft, down into the warm, soft straw. They wouldn't be safe from the sun here come morning, too many gaps in between the rough-hewn boards, but dawn was still a long way away. Godric curled around Eric, a large presence in a small body, and for the first time since he was turned, Eric felt no hunger at all, just a shuddering disgust, not at what he'd become, but for what he'd once been.

No doubt Godric understood—he understood everything—but Eric still felt the need to say it. Because Godric had watched him on the battlefield, haloed in glory, defiant of death, watched Eric and wanted him, and it felt like a lie to leave out the less glorious parts of his history. He pressed his face against Godric's skin and confessed it all, every failing, every frailty, and Godric ran his hands over Eric, over his back and along his arms and into his hair, absolving him of his humanity with every touch.

They slipped out of their clothes, and Godric moved on top of Eric, his soft weight pressing Eric back into the sweet-smelling straw. His tongue slid along Eric's jaw, making Eric shiver, and he whispered into Eric's ear as he entered him, "I will always be here, my child, to remind you who you are now and who you can become."

When they left that place, the old memories lingered, just as feeble and human, but the feelings attached to them seemed to drift away. And every time Godric touched him, every time he lay in Godric's arms, they grew a little dimmer.

This was true for a long time. Until it wasn't anymore.

The night before Godric's last on earth, they lay in each other's arms one final time, something they hadn't done in—longer than Eric cared to remember. There was no sex, no sleeping, no rest, because Godric had moved beyond all need. Immune to every hunger. The only thing he desired, wearily, was the end.

It felt like falling into the past, at least to Eric, to take off their clothes and lie down and press their bodies close. Godric ran a hand up and down Eric's arm, brushed the occasional kiss to his hair, trying to offer comfort, but his touch was empty, and Eric could hardly feel it.

He might have admitted then, if he were the kind of person to admit things, that Adam had never been what came between them. But in that moment, Eric hadn't thought of Adam at all. The only thing that mattered was Godric, who was too distant and too different from anything Eric understood, and he wanted to say something, but it was like trying to speak a language that didn't exist. He could see, no matter how much he tried not to, the end hurtling toward them, not dark but light, a brilliant abyss there would be no coming back from.

 

The sounds of the bar drift in through the closed door, the clink of glasses and tinny music and booze-slurred voices, business already resuming. Eric really should get up, start sorting out the mess down there, or else rouse Adam for another round of sex. He doesn't, though. He just lies there, lingering.

Adam is curled against him, arm flung across Eric's waist, his eyes closed, actually asleep, because as with all human things, Adam still loves to nap. Eric strokes a hand absently along Adam's back, and the thing is: Adam is also different from anything he understands, a language all his own, always has been, but there's nothing distant about him. He's right here, at Eric's side.

"You're thinking too hard," Adam slurs out drowsily.

The corner of Eric's mouth flutters upward. "You read minds now?"

"You're not as mysterious as you like to think." Eric can feel Adam's amused grin against his skin.

There's only one way to deal with that, and Eric moves quickly, covers Adam's body with his own, pressing him into the mattress. He tastes Adam's neck with his tongue and then bites, not breaking skin, just making a promise. "I still have a few surprises."

Adam smiles up at him brilliantly.

Nothing changes, not that anyone should notice. Adam is as infuriating as ever, slinking around the place making doe eyes at humans. Eric pretends to ignore him as usual, and Adam takes over the stage whenever the hell he feels like it. Only now he puts on a show for one, even when the place is packed, not taking his eyes off Eric while he's singing, making promises with the purse of his lips, his expression sultry and a little smug. In his room there's a pile of splintered wood and sawdust that used to be Adam's bed and a crater in the ceiling where they got a little more acrobatic than the building could handle.

"I see you've worked things out," Pam says, sliding in next to Eric at the bar.

Eric doesn't look up from the books. "I have no idea what you mean."

"Uh-huh. I guess there must have been a natural disaster then." He can hear her teasing smile. "Because I definitely felt the earth move."

He glares at her, which is totally undercut when Adam finishes up "Stairway to Heaven" and launches into a medley of traditional Swedish love songs.

Pam laughs out loud. "Oh, you two are _sweet_." She strolls off, not paying the least bit of attention to the hard stare Eric throws after her.

His gaze shifts back to the stage. The look in Adam's eyes is warm and amused, but also calculating, like he has plans for Eric, and Eric seriously considers cutting Adam's set short. They still have half a dozen rooms in the place left to demolish.

His phone interrupts this train of thought, and he checks the number before answering. "Mr. Reynolds. This better be important."

"Man, you have go to get yourself over here. Right now," Lafayette babbles, voice rising hysterically. "We have some serious ass problems with this little business venture of yours."

"Business venture?" Eric says coolly. "I have no idea what you mean."

Lafayette lowers his voice to barely a whisper. "Yeah, I see you trying to throw me under the bus, but ain't nobody gonna believe I got this assload of V without some pretty high-powered help of the undead kind. So unless you wanna go down with me, I suggest you get on over here and help me figure out how to fix this shit."

The line goes dead in Eric's ear, and he sifts through his options. It's beneath his dignity to go running because a human snaps his fingers, but if the Authority discovers he's been selling V—well, hopefully it won't take too long to sort out whatever mess Lafayette has made, and then he can get back to his plans for wrecking the bedroom furniture with Adam.

It's a clear night, and the stars become white-blue streaks as Eric flies, reaching Lafayette's house moments later. It's still, no lights on, and Eric moves silently up the steps, forces the lock, and goes inside. He spots a sliver of light from beneath a door at the top of the stairs, and he makes his way up noiselessly, tries the door, flings it open.

Lafayette lies on the bed, or writhes really, his body athletically tangled with another man's. At the sight of Eric, he snaps the sheet up over them both and glares. "Motherfucking cockblocker, what do you have against me getting laid?"

"Why did you call me?" Eric asks, glaring back.

"Oh, no, no, no. You're the one always crooking your finger at me. If it was up to me, we wouldn't be having any more of these little conversations."

It's clear then what the phone call must really have been. There's only one person he can think of who'd want him out of the way and only one reason why. Eric hurries back down the stairs. As he goes, he hears Lafayette's boyfriend ask, "Who was that?" and Lafayette answer, "You don't even want to know."

The night folds around Eric, and he gets back to Fangtasia little more than five minutes after he left. Unfortunately, it's long enough for all hell to have broken loose. The place looks like a tornado hit: broken glassware is strewn all over the floor, splintered chairs lie in heaps, human customers cower under overturned tables looking dazed. There's no sign of Adam anywhere, and even though Eric's instincts tell him that Adam is gone, he runs down the hall anyway and checks every room.

"Pam!" he calls out, with a sinking feeling. He can't sense her either.

But then _there_ —she's there, and he rushes back to the front to meet her. Pam stands framed in the open doorway, her eyebrows arched like question marks.

"Where have you been?" Eric asks her, with a flare of anger that he'd been worried.

"I got a call from Cecily's Shoegasm that the new Louboutins I wanted were in, but when I got to the store—what the hell happened here?" The moment the words take shape, realization registers on her face.

Eric turns, strides off to his office—the Queen could have spies in the club even now. Pam follows closely on his heels and shuts the door behind her. "At least we know where he is. And he's too charming to kill. Well, probably." Eric makes a face at her, _not helping_ , and she raises her eyebrows, as if to say, _What do you want from me?_

"We have to get him back," Eric says, pacing. "Although I don't know how. Her majesty doesn't like to give up her toys. And after that stunt Adam pulled—the Queen is even more impossible when she's been defied."

 _Insane_ Adam. Why couldn't he ever learn to play by the rules? And now how is Eric supposed to win him back? The irony doesn't escape him that only a week ago he would have laughed if anyone had suggested he would ever care about such a thing. Clearly, a week ago, he'd been much more sensible. He sweeps his arm across his desk, sending the contents flying in a fit of helpless fury.

"So, what are you going to do?" Pam asks quietly.

Eric sets his jaw. "The only thing I can. Go to her majesty and plead his case. For whatever that's worth."

He changes into clothes appropriate for court and heads off. The closer he gets, the stronger the feeling becomes: he's headed toward Adam. At the palace, he rings at the door and requests an audience with the Queen from the page who answers. He's shown into a receiving room, pink and white like a frosted cake, without a single piece of furniture. The Queen prefers to keep her supplicants standing while they wait. Time ticks by, and the overpowering sense of Adam nearby is a maddening tease, so close and yet out of Eric's reach.

Sophie-Anne saunters in at long last, wearing a pink confection of a dress that rather alarmingly matches the interior décor. "Mr. Northman, what a surprise!" She claps her hands together, making wide eyes at him, smiling a honeytrap of a smile, clearly in the mood to play.

Eric sighs inwardly. "Your majesty."

She sweeps further into the room. "I just had this redone. What do you think?"

Eric makes a show of admiring the Rococo-like frescoes starring Sophie-Annie in wide-brimmed hats and voluminous skirts cavorting with well-dressed aristocrats in scenes of bucolic bliss, glistening and sugary, as if they've been painted with icing. "Very life-like," he tells her.

"So what brings you by?" She tilts her head, wrinkling her brow. "A guilty conscience?"

Apparently, she's grown bored of the game already.

Eric bows his head humbly, or at least with his best impersonation of it. "Your majesty, let me explain—"

"How you tried to keep my songbird for yourself?" She drifts closer. "If I weren't a glass-half-full kind of girl, I might see that as an act of treason."

"That was not my intention," Eric quickly assures her. "Adam and I share the same maker, as you know, and while I don't approve of his irreverence for our customs, he is family. I felt duty-bound to protect him, even if it was from the consequences of his own stupidity. It was always my plan to encourage him to come to your majesty of his own accord and make amends."

"Mm." The Queen nods along. "Completely understandable. Very noble. There's just one itsy-bitsy point I need to correct you on." Her eyes glitter with a hard, acquisitive light. "He _was_ your family. Now he's my very own little music box, to do whatever I want with."

Eric isn't in the habit of begging, not from anyone, not for anything, but he does it now. For Adam. "Please," he says, the word threatening to stick in his throat.

"Well, I suppose—" She adopts a thoughtful expression, letting the moment drag on forever, every tick of time excruciating, which is precisely the point. "You'd have to bring me something I want more than my pretty songbird."

Of course, Eric knows what she means, _check mate_ , but even if he were willing to sacrifice his own interests in Sookie to get Adam back, he doesn't know how he'd be able to manage it. He can't just kidnap a human, not one who'll be missed anyway, not one who shoots light out of her fingers when she's antagonized.

"Can I see Adam?" Eric asks. Maybe the two of them can figure out a Plan B together.

The Queen must also think this is a possibility, or maybe she's just in the mood to be contrary. "Now why would I let you do that?" she asks glibly. "Half the fun of being a collector is locking away your treasures so you're the only one who can enjoy them." She leans in very close and says into Eric's ear, her voice a sickly sweet dagger. "Bring me what I want, or you're never going to see him again." She goes tripping off, with a toss of her hair, calling out, "Who's ready for another game of Twister?"

Eric can already smell the slow slide toward dawn, and if he doesn't leave now, he won't make it back to Fangtasia before daybreak. He has no choice but to go. Pam is waiting for him, her forehead creased when he comes through the door. He shakes his head; he's not in the mood to go into details, and anyway there's no time. They take refuge from the rising day, and by the time Eric wakes, whatever niggling doubts he might have had are gone. You never trade a known quantity for a phantom opportunity that might never materialize; every military man understands that. In Adam, he has a powerful vampire who's loyal to him while with Sookie—well, he has no idea what he has there. It's simply prudent strategy to make the trade.

That only leaves the question of how, which is answered quickly enough by Sookie herself. She blows through the door before they open, in an agitated flurry that can only mean there's yet more trouble in Comptonville.

"Did you know about this?" She tosses a folder of papers at him.

Inside he finds what appears to be the Stackhouse family tree. "I can't say amateur genealogy is one of my hobbies, no."

"I found this in Bill's papers when I was looking for some clue about what's going on with him. There are notes in there about what I can—about me. He's been spying on me! I want to know why." She fixes him with the insistent, half-crazed look she gets whenever Compton's the topic of conversation. If Eric were a therapist or even just somebody who gave a damn, he'd point out how dysfunctional their relationship is.

"It's very flattering that you seem to think I have all the answers, but the truth is, I have no idea what Compton is up to." He stops, wrinkling his brow thoughtfully, because when opportunity comes strolling into your bar, you have to know how to cultivate it. "Although—"

"What?" Sookies demands, watching him intently.

"I might know someone who could help. But they won't come to you. Are you up for a road trip?"

"Yes! Anywhere. I just want to know what's going on. Can we leave now?"

He puts on an annoyed face. "I can't just abandon my business every time you have a problem with your boyfriend. And there's not enough time to drive there and back before the sun rises."

"Can't you just—" She waves her hand in the air. "You know. Fly us there. Or whatever."

"I guess I _could_ ," Eric says reluctantly. "Although I can't promise it'll be a smooth ride."

"I'm not some china doll," Sookie tells him indignantly, hands on her hips. "I'm not going to break because there's a strong wind. So don't just stand there. Let's go already."

Eric lets her hustle him outside, and he gathers her up, and the humid night melts around them. It's no drain on his strength to carry her; the tricky part is remembering to go slow enough that a human can still breathe. By the time they arrive, Sookie looks like she's been blown over by a hurricane, red-faced and panting, her hair wild. He sets her down gently, and catches her by the elbow when she threatens to topple over. She shakes him off, determined to stand on her own two feet, that bravado of hers that Eric finds both laughable and endearing.

A truth registers in him, something he will never tell anyone: He really doesn't want to turn her over to the Queen, and not just because she might someday be useful to him.

Still, strategy demands what it demands, and Adam is the known quantity. "It's just inside," he tells Sookie.

She follows him across the stepping stone walk. "What is this place?" she asks in a hushed, reverent tone that belongs in a church or a museum.

Eric ignores the question and rings at the door. A page answers, and her eyes widen when she sees Sookie at Eric's side. She stands back to allow them to pass, and says, "I'll let her know you're here."

While they wait, Sookie drifts around the front hall, marveling at the vaulted ceiling and the gilt-edged trim. "I've never seen anything like it. Well, except in pictures. It's like—a palace out of a bedtime story."

Sophie-Anne materializes at the top of the stairs. "Oh! You got it for me."

"As promised, your majesty," Eric says, with a formal half bow.

Sookie whips her head around to stare at him, her mouth falling open, betrayal already beginning to glimmer in her eyes. " _Your majesty_?"

The Queen descends the stairs, the hem of her dress making a sibilant snake hiss on the marble. She closes in on Sookie, circles around, lifting a lock of Sookie's hair curiously and letting it fall, taking an extravagant sniff. "What is she?" she asks rhetorically, in a dreamy voice, and then breaks into excited clapping. "Oh, I love my present!"

"Present?" Sookie says, mouth set, ready for a fight.

Sophie-Anne doesn't notice, or doesn't care. She snaps her fingers. "Take it upstairs." Two thugs scuttle forward, grab Sookie by the arms, and drag her over to the steps.

"Get your hands off me!" Sookie thrashes in their grasp. "Eric! Don't you dare leave me here! And, you, get your clammy hands off me!" She kicks at one of the Queen's minions, who snarls at her, and after a careening moment when it looks like all three will spill back down the stairs like an avalanche, they finally get her to the top. "Eric!" Sookie's voice cracks, just a little, as they drag her down the hall. "I trusted you!"

 _I'm sorry_ , but Eric won't say it, won't let it show. A thousand years have taught him many things, certainly how to keep his expression as blank as stone. "We had a deal," he reminds the Queen.

"So we did." She pushes her mouth into a pout, like a spoiled child.

Eric has always known she could just as easily go back on their bargain—it's entirely her nature, any vampire's really—but now it seems all but inevitable. So there's no guessing why she waves airily to one of her minions, who scurries off and returns after a while dragging a disgruntled-looking Adam by the arm. Maybe just to prove that Eric has no power to predict her.

Adam's hair stands on end as if he's been trying to rip it out; he's still wearing the same leather pants and white shirt, rumpled now in a way that has nothing to do with fashion.

"Before you go." Sophie-Anne lays a hand on Adam's shoulder and pushes a hard, wet kiss onto his mouth. "You still owed me for losing that last game of Yahtzee," she says when Adam makes a face.

Her lipstick lingers, red and sticky, like a territorial mark smeared across Adam's mouth, and Eric can see, or maybe just imagine, faint, telltale traces of it all over Adam's face. Eric doesn't just want to erase those prints; he wants to erase Sophie-Anne herself. Since that's not an option, he settles for taking Adam proprietarily by the arm and starting for the door. Adam shoots him an irritable look that no doubt means, _Haven't I been manhandled enough already?_ Eric glares right back, _Don't start with me._

Never trust anything that seems too easy—that philosophy has kept Eric alive for a thousand years—and so it hardly comes as a surprise that Sledgehammer Face materializes out of the ranks of the Queen's minions and hunkers down in their path, blocking the door, square and ugly as a cinderblock wall.

"Seriously?" Adam mutters.

Eric snarls at Sledgehammer Face, showing his fangs. He's been compelled to do something he really didn't want to tonight, so it seems only fair, a balance of the scales, that he should get to do something that would give him pleasure, like tearing this moron limb from limb.

"Bruno," the Queen says, waving her hand lazily. "You're holding up our guests, who no doubt have a very busy night of reunion sex to get home to."

Bruno steps out of the way, however reluctantly, and Eric hurries Adam out of there, hand on his elbow.

Adam, of course, gets chatty the moment they step past the front gate, as if the danger is all safely behind them now. "How did you get me back?"

Eric doesn't answer, moving fast enough that the wind whistles past them, holding fast to Adam's wrist, dragging him along.

"What did you do?" Adam persists and when Eric still doesn't answer, he digs in his heels, his boots scuffing in the dirt, slamming to a halt. " _Eric_."

Eric lets out an exasperated huff. "Nothing that wasn't always going to happen."

Alarm slips across Adam's face. "I thought I sensed—does this have something to do with that girl? Fuck, Eric, what did you _do_?"

"Would you rather still be losing at Yahtzee?" Eric snaps at him.

"She cheats!" Adam shouts irritably, as if that is the last straw, being accused of sucking at board games.

Vampires—at least vampires who aren't Adam—don't have a scent, just the wind and old blood, but Eric imagines he can smell Sophie-Anne on Adam's skin, cloying, sticky, as if she still has him in her clutches. And that's not, Eric won't—he grabs Adam by the hair and drags him into a kiss, snarling and biting.

"If you could piss to mark your territory, my favorite leather pants would totally be ruined right now, wouldn't they?" Adam says dryly, but he's gripping Eric's biceps tightly, possessively. He sticks his tongue so far down Eric's throat it's as if he's mining for something. "This whole struggle for dominance thing would be more interesting if we were naked in bed, don't you think?"

He takes off, and Eric follows, and in the few moments it takes to get back to Fangtasia, Eric is reminded of their history, all the many times they were streaks across the night sky, side-by-side shooting stars. Maybe it's thinking about the past, or that Eric can still sense the Queen on Adam even after a hundred-mile dash—whatever the reason, the word _mine_ throbs through his head, over and again. If the dark spark in Adam's eyes is any indication, he not only knows this, but likes it, and they stumble through the door to the bar, kissing and pawing at each other.

It takes Pam clearing her throat, rather loudly, to pry them apart. Eric glances over, and the last of the worry slips from Pam's expression. "I see it went all right," she says, with a sarcastic slant to her mouth.

Ordinarily, this is where Eric would give Pam a look, eyebrow arched, _Is that how you speak to your maker?_ , which she would cheerfully ignore, but he gets distracted by the sight of Adam's lower lip, soft and full, begging to be kissed, and the wide vee of his shirt collar, showing off the pale curve of his neck like an invitation.

Pam rolls her eyes. "Okay, I'm going to say it, even if it is pointless. Get a room!" She goes click-clicking off, and Eric hears her call out, "Yvetta! I've got another special project for you!"

Adam takes the "get a room" remark to heart, picks one at random, and pushes Eric up against the wall as they step across the threshold, because intimate acts of aggression—that's who they are.

"Later, we're going to talk about whatever you did to get the Queen to let me go." Adam runs his mouth along the line of Eric's jaw, sucks on a spot beneath his chin, pulls at Eric's ear lobe with his teeth. "But right now all I care about is how fucking hot it is that you came to get me."

He kisses Eric's throat, dry and chaste, and then laves the same spot with his tongue, making growly pleasure noises deep in his throat, and then Eric gasps out and arches his neck as Adam sinks his teeth in.

"So good," Adam murmurs as he laps up the blood, slurred, pleasure-drunk. "Not just 'cause you taste like him."

Eric doesn't know if he believes that or not, but it's enough that Adam believes it. He runs his hands through Adam's hair, pulling at the strands. Eric is taller, but their bodies fit as if they were made for this, hips slotting together, and Eric pushes up from the wall, rubbing his cock against Adam's hip, feeling Adam's cock, just as hard and hot, against his own thigh.

Adam kisses Eric's neck, the spot where he'd just been drinking, smiling. "We're going to do this my way this time, remember?" And then Eric is flying, effortlessly tossed. He lands on the bed, and Adam lands on top of him, straddling Eric's hips, holding Eric's wrists down against the mattress. "Let me. You know you want to."

Eric could hurl Adam across the room, across the county—they both know that—but he doesn't, because Adam is right. Eric wants this.

Of course, Adam's way, predictably, is maddening. For the longest time, he lies on top of Eric kissing, without taking off a single piece of clothing from either of them, rubbing against Eric in a slow, crazy-making tease, layers of fabric standing in the way of skin.

"I _will_ ruin your favorite leather pants," Eric threatens, snarling and impatient, "if you don't get them off right now."

This draws a laugh from Adam, and more unexpectedly, a fit of obedience. He clambers off the bed, not minding his knees and elbows, catching Eric in the stomach, which earns him a kick to the chest.

"Play nice," Adam says, still smiling.

He sways his hips, humming under his breath, and undoes the top button of his shirt, slowly, slowly, taking the fact that they're both immortal and technically have all the time in the world way too seriously in Eric's opinion. Adam strokes a finger over the little bit of skin he's revealed, in slow sensual circles, hips moving in time, his soft singing pitching lower, into a sultrier octave.

Eric leans up on his elbows to watch, and he's suddenly reminded of that night long ago in London, the way Adam moved over Godric, smooth as water, pale skin glowing in the candlelight. Beautiful—something Eric couldn't admit then. Eric rubs his cock through his pants.

"Don't," Adam says, or orders really, eyebrows drawn together in disapproval.

"Why? You're not doing anything about it." Eric presses the heel of his hand against his erection.

Adam tosses off the rest of his clothes in a flurry and starts in on Eric's, yanking his pants down his legs, ripping the shirt off him. He stops for a moment, just to look, and Eric isn't above showing off a little, stretching out his long legs, letting his thighs fall open. Adam's mouth curves up softly, and he crawls back on top of Eric. It's easy to read the playful, determined gleam in his eyes; he's a man with colonial aspirations.

He's thorough about it too, putting his mouth all over Eric, slotting his fingers into the hollows of Eric's hips, rubbing his cheek against Eric's belly like a friendly cat, pressing his nose into the curve of Eric's neck as if trying to find some long lost hint of Eric's human scent. He touches everywhere, _everywhere_ but Eric's cock, because he's Adam, and if he weren't driving Eric crazy, he'd be someone else entirely.

"Enough," Eric barks out, in a voice that's led men to war, tangling his hand into Adam's hair. If Adam won't get to it, won't put his mouth where it belongs, then Eric will _make_ him.

This brings a laugh spilling out of Adam, joyfully. "Oh, you _are_ impatient." His eyes sparkle approvingly, and he dips his head, and if he's made Eric wait too long, he makes up for it now.

Eric has never had any intentions of coming apart in Adam's hands—hasn't given that much control to anyone since—but Adam clearly has plans of his own. He hollows out his cheeks and does this thing with his tongue on every upstroke that sends curls of pleasure all down Eric's back. He slides his hand between Eric's legs, rubbing, pressing inside. Nothing about Eric has ever been yielding, body included, but he feels himself yielding now, for Adam. And Eric is going to come, wants to come, in Adam's wide, gorgeous—

Adam lifts his head, smiling insufferably. "I want you to come in my mouth. Just not now." He kneels up. Lube has materialized from somewhere. Eric has to wonder if Adam has planted bottles of Wet in odd spots all over Fangtasia. Adam smears it liberally over himself until it's dripping onto the sheets.

Eric has only ever done this with Godric, and not for hundreds of years, and as Adam fits himself between Eric's thighs, his expression is strangely solemn, as if he understands this. He works his way inside, slow and slick and careful, and that's not how Eric wants it. Nothing between them has ever been careful. He grabs Adam, hand sliding behind his neck, and pulls him down into a kiss, biting, drawing blood. _Not one of your humans_.

"Oh, fuck yeah," Adam mutters.

He becomes a lot less careful after that, hips snapping forward, hard and relentless and good, his cock dragging against that place deep inside Eric, sending vicious whorls of excitement through him. Eric has Adam's scent all over him, and the taste of Adam in his mouth, shared source, but also more than that, and suddenly Eric understands. Adam was never meant as a consolation prize. He's a reminder to Eric of who he once was and who he is now and who he could be.

Eric slides his legs higher up Adam's back, tightens his thighs, drawing Adam closer, deeper, pushing up into his thrusts. "Adam." His voice comes rough, almost pained. "Please." He never says that, and now it's happened twice in a matter of days, and that's just the thing about Adam. He always takes Eric outside of himself.

Adam's expression turns soft and then fierce at the word, tenderness mixed with lust. "Eric." He's gone wild, an inhuman whirlwind, fucking, kissing, moaning, jerking Eric off. When Eric comes, he's gripping Adam's shoulders hard enough to leave marks, biting his lip, tasting his own blood, and Adam is staring down at him, eyes wide and bright with… well, joy is the only word for it.

Orgasm turns Adam into a mumbling, boneless weight. He collapses across Eric's chest, and Eric crooks an arm around him, threading his fingers absently through Adam's hair, rubbing at his scalp, which makes Adam murmur happily and arch into his touch.

It doesn't seem like too much to ask to just lie there and enjoy the way Adam smells after sex and not talk, but then the two of them never have seen anything the same way.

"So, now it's later," Adam observes, voice husky and post-coital, and Eric really doesn't know how he's supposed to talk about anything when Adam sounds like _that_.

"You could just let it go," he points out.

Apparently not, since Adam twists around, using Eric's shoulder as a chin rest, so they can have this conversation face-to-face. "I'm not going to like it, am I?"

Eric looks up at the ceiling. There's a crack running length-wise across it. Their sex life hasn't done the building's structural integrity any favors. "I've given Sookie's boyfriend the opportunity to charge in and prove his undying love by rescuing her. So, actually, I'd say it's exactly the kind of thing you like."

This is even the truth, mostly, and eventually, after Adam's had a moment to consider it, his mouth curves up knowingly. "Closet romantic."

Eric doesn't answer, just kisses Adam, because he at least knows when to keep his mouth shut.

Sadly, it's not catching. "But shouldn't we help?" Adam says, eyebrows drawing together thoughtfully. "What can one vampire do against the Queen?"

A picture flashes through Eric's head, of Adam storming the palace, brave and beautiful and _insane_. He keeps his voice carefully level. "It's not going to be just one vampire. The monarchs have a fragile balance, at best. There are spies in every court, and when word gets out that Sophie-Anne has acquired a human with unusual abilities—things are going to get very complicated."

If the Queen lasts a week before the inevitable coup, it will be a miracle. Eric keeps this part to himself.

"Sounds like a good time to get out of town," Adam says, unexpectedly.

Eric had anticipated an argument, one of Adam's epic fits of stubbornness, not this tentative note in Adam's voice, and he can think of only one reason for it, a reason he doesn't like at all. "Will you go to New York with your human?"

"Not while things are 'complicated'. I don't want Tommy getting caught up in the middle of anything—" He trails off, a lilt at the end, an invitation.

"We could go somewhere," Eric says slowly, testing. Like old times, he thinks, only without the hatred. "Just for a while. I can't leave Pam, not for long."

Adam nods. "And I promised Tommy New York. But we could—just for a while." He's trying not to look hopeful and not succeeding at it. "Maybe Tahiti?"

He rattles on about other places they could go. Eric strokes his hair and doesn't really listen, because he already knows where they'll end up. At the beginning. The spot where a prison cart once stood and probably now has a McDonald's built on it. Adam will take a dim view of Eric wanting to snack on the tourists, even the ones wearing white socks and sandals, and they'll end up at some underground club, bathed in glitter, and Adam will sing and steal everyone's breath, while Eric stands off to the side like he doesn't care, hanging on every note.

Because everything changes, and nothing at all, and as unlikely as it is, Eric finds he wouldn't want it to be any different.

 

Additional Notes:  
Complete lyrics to _La Marseillaise_ can be found here.


End file.
